BOSTON
PUBLIC
LIBRARY
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning : after-
ward thou shall be called ... the faithful city. — ISAIAH I. 26.
c« •£
THE
MEMORIAL
HISTORY OF BOSTON,
INCLUDING
SUFFOLK COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.
1630—1880.
EDITED
BY JUSTIN WINSOR,
LIBRARIAN OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY.
- /
IN FOUR VOLUMES. Q ^ J // /
VOL. in. / T
THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. PART I:
Issued under the business superintendence of the projector,
CLARENCE F. JEWETT.
C. C. C. H. LIBRARY
A. C. C. H» LIBRARY 50 West Broadway
SOUTH BOSTON, MASS. SQ^ Boston
BOSTON-
JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY.
1881.
07856
Copyright, 1881,
BY JAMES R. OSGOOD & Co.
All Rights Reserved.
.JMMBBID iE. MtSS >
I
INTRODUCTION.
MAPS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. In the Introduction to the
second volume the Editor offered as full a list as he could make of the
maps of Boston and its vicinity, belonging to the Provincial Period. He
brought the enumeration down to a time when the struggle of the Revo-
lution began to require a new issue of maps, and at this point he again
takes up the list.
1774. A Chart of the Coast of New England, from Beverly to Scituate Harbor, in-
cluding the Ports of Boston and Salem. Engraved by J. Lodge. This map appeared in
the London Magazine, April, 1774(10 X 7/^ inches). In the upper left-hand corner is a
Plan of the Town of Boston (5 X 3'/2 inches). There are but few names of interest on
the plan. There is a copy in the Boston Athenaeum. The same plate was used in the
A»ierican Atlas, issued by Thomas Jefferys in 1776, and printed by Sayer and Bennett.
1774. A Map of the most Inhabited Part of New England, by Thomas Jefferys, Nov.
29, 1774 (37^ X 40 inches). In one corner is a map of the town (8>£ X S1A inches),
and also a chart of the harbor (8% X $1A inches), "from an accurate survey." See Mass.
Hist. Soc. Proc., September, 1864. This map is contained in The American Atlas, by
the late Mr. Thomas Jefferys, London, Sayer and Bennett, 1776, numbers [5 and 16. It
was also re-engraved for a Map of the most Inhabited Part of New England, published
without date, at Augsburg, by Tobias Conrad Letter.
The map of the town seems to be based on the London Magazine map of the same date ;
is called A New and Accurate Plan of the Town of Boston in New England. Mr. A. O.
Crane issued a fac-simile, Boston, 1875." See the map described under 1784.
1775. A Plan of the Town and Chart of the Harbor of Boston, exhibiting a View
of tlie Islands, Castle, Forts, and Entrances into the said Harbor. Dated Feb. I, 1775
(14 X 12 inches) ; includes Chelsea and Hingham, and gives soundings. It appeared
in the Gentleman's Magazine, January, 1775. Cf. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., May, 1860. It
is given herewith in fac-simile. The view on the same page of heliotype is of Nix's Mate
as it appeared at this time, — now only a shoal. This is a reduction of one of the Des
Barres series of coast views.
1775. BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. The earliest plan of the battle is a slight sketch,
after information from Chaplain John Martin, drawn by Stiles in his Diary, and reproduced
in Historical Magazine, June, 1868 ; where will also be found a rude plan, made by print-
ers' rules, given in Rivingtoit's Gazette, Aug. 3, 1775. This last is reproduced in Fro-
thingham's Siege of Boston. Lieutenant Page * made an excellent plan, based on a survey
1 Page was one of the royal engineers, and England on leave in January, 1776, when the
served as aid to Howe; was wounded; was in London Chronicle spoke of him "as the only one
VOL. in. — a.
ii THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
by Montresor, of the British Engineers, showing the laying-out of Charlestown. The suc-
cessive positions of the British line are indicated on a smaller superposed sheet. This
was issued in London in 1776, called A Plan of the Action at Bunker's Hill on the ijth
June, 1775, between His Majesty's Troops under the Command of Major-General Howe,
and the Rebel Forces. The same plate, with some changes, was dated April 12, 1793, and
used in Stedman's American War. It was re-engraved, reduced, by D. Martin, substitut-
ing " American " for " Rebel," and " Breed's " for " Bunker's " in the title, with a few other
changes in names, and issued by C. Smith in 1797, in The American War from 1775 to
1783. See Hunnewell's Bibliography of Charlestown and Bunker Hill, 1880, p. 18, where
a heliotype is given. It was again re-engraved, much reduced (5^ X 9 inches), for Dear-
born's Boston Notions, 1848, p. 156; and soon after, full size, following the original of 1776,
in Frothingham's Siege of Boston? A map of Boston, showing also Charlestown and Bun-
ker's Hill, — but called Plan of the Battle on Bunkers Hill. Fought on the \jth of June,
1775. By an Officer on the spot. London, printed for R. Sayer and T. Bennett, . . . Nov.
-7i '775) — has the text of Burgoyne's letter to Lord Stanley on the same sheet. It has
been reproduced in F. Moore's Ballad History of the Revolution, part ii.
Henry de Berniere, of the Tenth Royal Infantry, made a map similar in scale to
Page's, but not so accurate in the ground plan. It was called Sketch of the Action on the
Heights of Charlestown, and having been first mentioned in the Gleaner, — a newspaper
published at Wilkesbarre, Pa., by Charles Miner, — as found recently in an old drawer, it
was engraved, in fac-simile, in the Analectic Magazine, Philadelphia, February, 1818;
where it is stated to have been found in the captured baggage of a British officer, and to
have been "copied by J. A. Chapman from an original sketch taken by Henry de Berniere,
of the fourteenth regiment of infantry, now in the hands of J. Cist, Esq." General Dearborn
commented on this plan in the Portfolio, March, 1818 (reprinted in Historical Magazine,
June, 1868), with the same plan altered in red (19^ X 12,^ inches), which alterations were
criticised by Governor Brooks in June, 1818. See N. E. Hist, and Geneal. Reg., July,
1858. G. G. Smith worked on this rectified plan in producing his Sketch of the Battle of
Bunker Hill, by a British Officer (12 X 19 inches), issued in Boston at the time of the
completion of the monument in 1843.
Colonel Samuel Swett made a plan (i8>£ X 12^ inches), based on De Berniere's, which
was published in his History of the Battle of Bunker Hill, and has been reproduced, full
size, in Ellis's Oration in 1841 ; and reduced variously in Lossing's Field-book of the Rev-
olution, in Ellis's History, and Centennial History ; and in other places.
There are other plans in the English translation of Botta's War of Independence, in
Ridpath's United States, and in other popular histories. A good eclectic map is given in
Carrington's Battles of the American Revolution, ch. 15. A map of Charlestown and plan
of the battle (16^" X 14 inches), by James E. Stone, was published by Prang & Co. in
1875. Felton and Parker's large survey of Charlestown, 1848, is of use in identifying
localities, being made on the same scale as Page's plan ; and it helped Thomas W. Davis
in making a Plan showing the redoubt, breastwork, rail-fence, and grass protection, which
was published in the Bunker Hill Monument Association's Proceedings, 1876, of which a
section is given in Dr. Hale's chapter.
1775. A Plan of Boston, in New England, with its Environs ; made by Henry
Pelham (and often signed by him) under permission of Ja : Urquhart, town major, Aug.
28, 1775. It shows the lines about the town and the harbor. It was printed in two
sheets (together, 42^ X 28^ inches), and published in London, June 2, 1777, done in
now living of those who acted as aides-de-camp l Frothingham, it will be seen, was in error
to General Howe, so great was the slaughter of in supposing his to be the earliest American re-
officers that day. He particularly distinguished production. See Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., June,
himself in the storming of the redoubt, for which 1875, where will be found his account of the
he received General Howe's thanks." — Mass, maps and views of Charlestown before and after
Hist. Sot. Proc., June, 1875, p. 56. the battle.
« Jt.;* i .1 /'/, .1 -V /'/' fill- T<> II Y
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CllAKT </'//«• IlAKllolU
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FROM THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE, 1775.
Nix's MATE IN 1775.
INTRODUCTION. iii
aquatinta by Francis Jukes. Dr. Belknap said of it in 1789: " I believe there is no more
correct plan than Mr. Pelham's." — Belknap Papers, ii. 115. There is a copy in Harvard
College Library, and a tracing made from
this by George Lamb was given in the
Evacuation Memorial, 1876. There are
two copies in the Massachusetts Histor-
j ical Society's Library ; another is owned
<y . by Samuel S. Shaw, Esq. Frank Moore,
in his Diary of the American Revolution,
gives a reduced representation of it; and a small fac-simile will be found in S. A. Drake's
Old Landmarks of Middlesex. A reduced fac-simile of it is also given herewith.
0
1775. A Plan of the Town of Boston with the Intrenchments, etc., of His Majesty's
Forces in \T]$,from the observations of Lieut. Page, of His Majesty 's Corps of Engineers,
and from the plans of other gentlemen ; engraved and printed for William Faden, Oct. I,
r777 (ll3/( X I7X inches). It is reproduced by Frothingham, in his Siege of Boston,
and also in the present History. It gives the peninsula only, with a small bit of Charles-
town, and according to Shurtleff it gives names to several streets, etc., different from
Bonner's. There was a later edition, October, 1778. The original drawing of this plan
is in the Faden collection in the Library of Congress.
1775. Boston, its Environs and Harbour, with the Rebels' Works Raised against that
Town in 1775, from the Observations of Lieut. Page, of His Majesty's Corps of Engi-
neers, and from the Plans of Capt. Montresor ; scale, 2^ inches to the mile; extends
from Point Alderton to Cambridge, and from Chelsea to Dorchester (33 X 18 inches) ;
"engraved and published by William Faden, Oct. I, 1778." There is a copy in the Massa-
chusetts Historical Society's Library, book 572, No. 3, " Miscellaneous Maps." The
original drawing is in the Faden Collection, Library of Congress.
1775. A large chart of Boston Harbor, and the neighboring country, surveyed by Samuel
Holland"*- (42 X 30 inches and without title), dated Aug. 5, 1775. It takes in Nahant, Nan-
tasket, and Cambridge. It was subsequently dated Dec. I, 1781, with some changes, and
with the fortifications of the siege marked in and explained in marginal references ; and is
included by Des Barres in the Atlantic Neptune, part iii. No. 6, 1780-83. A text, some-
times with this later issue, says it was composed from different surveys, but principally
from that of George Callendar, 1 769, late master of His Majesty's ship " Romney." Richard
Frothingham's copy of this later plate was used in making the reproduction in Shurtleff s
Description of Boston, 1870. The same plate was used in Charts of the Coast and Harbors
of New England, from Surveys taken by Samuel Holland, etc., for the use of the Royal
Navy of Great Britain. By J. F. W. Des Barres, 1781.
1 Samuel Holland was Surveyor-general of ready to run the line between Massachusetts
the northern colonies, and, working down the and New York. He adhered to the crown
coast from the north, he had completed his sur- in the Revolutionary war, and died in Lower
veys as far south as Boston in 1773; and in 1775 Canada in 1801. Sabine's American Loyalists,
he reported to Lord Dartmouth that he was i. 537.
iv THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
An outline map of Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay is contained in a series
called Charts of the Coast and Harbors of New England, by J. F. IV. Des Barres,from
Surveys by Samuel Holland and his Assistants, who have been employed on that service
since the year 1764.
1775. Seat of War in New England by an American Volunteer, with the Marches
of the several Corps sent by the Colonies towards Boston, with the attack on Bunker Hill.
London, Sayer and Bennett, Sept. 2, 1775. (18 X 15^ inches.) It extends from Lower
New Hampshire to Narragansett Bay, and west to Leicester. It was reproduced in the
Centennial Graphic, 1875.
On the same sheet are two marginal maps, — Plan of Boston Harbor ($/4 X 6
inches) ; and Plan of Boston and Charlestown, — the latter showing pictorially the battle
of Bunker Hill in progress, and the town burning, — (5^ X 12 inches). It seems to fol-
low for Boston the London Magazine map, and is fac-similed in W. W. Wheildon's New
History of the Battle of Bunker Hill, 1875 ; also in the accounts and memorials of the
battle prepared by David Pulsifer, James M. Bugbee, and George A. Coolidge. It also
very closely resembles the following : —
1775. Plan of the Town of Boston, with the attack on Bunker's Hill, in the Peninsula
of Charlestown, on June 17, 1775. J- Norman, Sc. (11% X 7 inches, folding.) The
Charlestown peninsula represents the town burning, and the British troops advancing to
attack the redoubt. This map appeared in An impartial History of the War in America
Boston : Nathaniel Coverley and Robert Hodge, MDCCLXXXI. vol. i. ; and in the second
(1782) Newcastle-upon-Tyne edition of a book, published in London, of a like title, the
first English edition having appeared in 1779. 'See Henry Stevens's Hist. Coll., i.,
No. 435-
1775. Map of Boston and Charlestown, by An English Officer present at Bunko
Hill. London, Sayer and Bennett, Nov. 25, 1775. (14 X 14 inches.)
1775. Boston and the Surrounding Country, and Posts of the American Troops,
Sept., 1775, is the title of a sketch in TrumbulFs Autobiography, showing the lines of cir-
cumvallation as drawn by himself. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., April, 1879, p. 62. It is given
in fac-simile, in Dr. Hale's chapter in the present volume.
1775. Plan of Boston and its environs, showing the true situation of His Majesty's
Army, and also those of the Rebels ; drawn by an Engineer at Boston, Oct., 1775 ; pub-
lished, March 12, 1776, by Andrew Dury ; engraved by Jno. Lodge for the late Mr.
Jefferys, geographer to the King. (25 X 17^ inches.) In Charlestown it shows the
" Redoubt taken from ye rebels by General Howe," with the British camp on Bunker
Hill. It includes Governor's Island, and takes in the Cambridge and Roxbury lines. It
bears this address : " To the public. The principal part of this plan was surveyed by
Richard Williams, lieutenant at Boston, and sent over by the son of a nobleman to his
father in town, by whose permission it is published. N. B. — The original has been com-
pared with, and additions made from, several other curious drawings."
1775. Map of Boston, Charlestown and vicinity, showing the lines of circumvalla-
tion ; in Force's American Archives, iii. and reproduced in W. W. Wheildon's Siege
and Evacuation of Boston and Charlestown, 1876.
1775. Plan of Boston, with Charlestown marked as in ruins ; in the Gentleman's
Magazine, October 1775.
1775. A new and correct plan of the Town of Boston and Provincial Camp is in
the Pennsylvania Magazine, July, 1775. It resembles that in the Gentleman's Magazine,
January, 1775, and was engraved byAitkins (7^ X io>< inches), showing the peninsula
only. In one corner of the plate is a plan of the Provincial Camp, scale two miles to one
inch, with the circumvallating lines. It is reproduced in W. W. Wheildon's Siege and
Evacuation of Boston and Charlestown ; Moore's Ballad History, etc.
1775. A new Plan of Boston Harbour from an actual survey, C. Lownes. sculp.;
in the Pennsylvania Magazine, June, 1775. (7^ X *o/4 inches.) It has this legend:
"N. B. — Charlestown burnt, June 17, 1775, by the Regulars."
1'IIK TOWN OK BOSTON
with
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INTRODUCTION. V
1775. To the Honl. Jno. Hancock, Esq., . . . this Map of the Seat of Civil War
in America is . . . inscribed by ... B. Romans. It extends from Buzzard's Bay to
Salem, from the ocean to Leicester. (15 X 17 inches.) It contains also a marginal Plan
of Boston and its Environs. 1775 (3 X 3/4 inches), showing the circumvallating lines. In
the lower right-hand corner is a small view (t X 6^ inches) of The Lines thrown up on
Boston Neck by the Ministerial Army. The key reads : " i, Boston ; 2, Mr. Hancock's
house; 3, enemy's camp on M* [?] Hill; 4, block house; 5, guardhouses; 6, gate and
draw-bridge ; 7, Beacon Hill."
1775. An inaccurate map of Boston and environs (10^ X 8^ inches), made in June,
1775, and published, Aug. 28, 1775, in Almon's Remembrancer, \. It gives the head-
quarters of the opposing forces, their camps, lines, etc. The second edition of the first
volume of Almon contained a map giving forty miles about Boston, a plan of the town,
and a map of the vicinity.
1775. A small Map of Boston and Vicinity, after one made during the British occu-
pancy, is given in Harper's Monthly, June, 1873, in an article by B. J. Lossing, describing
some views of Boston in the collection of Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet of New York.
1775. Boston and circumjacent Country, showing present situation of the King's
Troops, and the Rebel intrenchments. July 25, 1775. (16^ X 17 inches.) A fac-simile
of this, from the original manuscript owned by Mr. Charles Deane, is given in the Mass.
Hist. Soc. Proc., April, 1879.
1775. A draught of the Harbor of Boston, and the adjacent towns and roads, 1775, is
the inscription on a manuscript map (12X9 inches) in the Belknap Papers, i. 84, in the
Massachusetts Historical Society's cabinet.
1775. Plan of Dorchester Neck, made for the use of the British Army, given in T. C.
Simond's History of South Boston, p. 31. The History of Dorchester, p. 333, speaks of a
map (of which an engraving is given) drawn by order of the British general, showing nine
houses on the Neck, as being in the Massachusetts Historical Society Library ; but it can-
not now be found.
1775. Boston and Vicinity, following Pelham for the country and Page for the harbor
03 X 91A inches), was compiled by Gordon for his American Revolution, in 1788.
1775. Boston and Vicinity, 1775-1776 ; engraved for Marshall's Washington; Phila-
delphia, C. P. Wayne, 1806. (8^ X I3#-) It follows Gordon's, and was reduced for
subsequent editions. A wood-cut of a similar plan is given in Lossing's Field-book
of the Revolution, i. 566. See also Carrington's Battles of the American Revolution,
p. 154.
1775. Map of Boston and Vicinity. It is an eclectic map, showing the lines of cir-
cumvallation, and was engraved for Sparks's Washington, iii. 26, and is also given in
the Boston Evacuation Memorial, 1876. It was followed in Guizot's Washington, and in
Bryant and Gay's United States; iii. 427.
1775. Boston and its Environs in 1755 and 1776 (6^ X 9 inches). Shows the har-
bor and the lines of circumvallation. An eclectic map, engraved for Frothingham's Siege
of Boston, p. 91.
1775-1776. BRITISH LINES ON BOSTON NECK. Several plans are preserved. The
main defence was at Dover Street, the outer works being near the line of Canton Street.
A manuscript plan, — " the courses, distances, etc., taken from the memorandum book of
a deserter from the Welch Fusileers," — is preserved in the Lee Papers, belonging to the
American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, and of this a description is given in the
Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., April, 1879, p. 62. A reduced fac-simile is given in Dr. Hale's
chapter. It has an explanatory table of the armament in the hand of Colonel Mifflin,
Washington's aid, and is signed T. M. A plan nearly duplicate, sent by Washington to
Congress (Force's American Archives, fourth series, p. 29), is copied by Force (p. 31),
and is reproduced in Wheildon's Siege and Evacuation of Boston. Cf. Trumbull's Au-
tobiography, p. 2?, where it is mentioned that Trumbull, an aid to General Spencer, who
vi THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
had made a sketch of the works, by crawling up under cover of the tall grass, had hoped
by this means to recommend himself to the Commander-in-Chief. " My further progress
was rendered unnecessary," he adds, " by the desertion of one of the British artillery-
men, who brought out with him a rude plan of the entire work. My drawing was also
shown to the General ; and their correspondence proved that, as far as I had gone, I was
correct. This (probably) led to my future promotion." In the Pennsylvania Magazine >
Aug. 1775, is an Exact Plan of General Gage's Lines on Boston Neck in America. (9 X
n)4 inches.) The scale is a quarter of a mile to 4}f inches. It gives both the outer
and inner lines. In the text a statement is made of the guns mounted, ending, —
"This is a true state this day, July 31, 1775." A drawing of the British lines on
the Neck, dated August, 1775, is in the Faden collection of maps in the Library of
Congress. An engraved view is given in heliotype in Dr. Hale's chapter. A somewhat
rude delineation of the lines on a contemporary powder-horn is noted in Mass. Hist. Soc.
Proc., June, 1881.
1776. Chart of Massachusetts Bay and Boston Harbor; published, April 29, 1776;
extends from Cape Ann to Cape Cod. It appeared in the Atlantic Neptune, dated Dec.
I, 1781. According to Shurtleff, one edition of this map is dated May, 1774. It also
appeared, with the earlier date, in Des Barres' Charts of the Coast and Harbors of New
England, 1781. W.P. Parrott in 1851 issued a reproduction of the Des Barres map of
the harbor.
1776. Chart of Boston Bay; published Nov. 13, 1776. Takes in Salem, Scituate,
and Watertown. (39 X 3Q>£ inches.) The surveys were made by Samuel Holland. As
appearing in the Atlantic Neptune, 1780-83, it is dated Dec. I, 1781, and signed by J. F.
W. Des Barres. It is also included in Des Barres' Charts of the Coast and Harbors of
New England, 1781. The Back Bay is called " Charles Bay."
1776. There is in the Massachusetts Historical Society's Cabinet a rudely drawn map
of the harbor and adjacent parts (8 X 7/^ inches), in which the positions of the American
forces are given. The Continental army is put at twenty thousand, and the Royal forces
in the town at eight thousand.
1776. The North American Pilot for New England, etc., from original surveys by
Captain John Gascoigne, Joshua Fisher, Jacob Blarney, and other Officers and Pilots
in His Majesty 's Service. London, Sayer and Bennett, 1776. This contains a chart of
the harbor of Boston, with the soundings, etc. (34 X 21 inches). The course up the chan-
nel, from below Castle William, is marked by bringing the outer angle of the North
Battery in range with " Charlestown tree," which stands on the peninsula, inscribed
" Ruins of Charlestown.'' Harvard College Library has the volume, and the loose map
is in the Massachusetts Historical Society Library, and in the Public Library. Cf. Mass.
Hist. Soc. Proc., Sept. 1864. A second edition, 1800, is also in the College Library, and
has the same map.
1776. Map of the seat of War in New England. London ; printed for Carrington
Bowles, 1776. (6*4 X 4/4 inches.) It has on the margin a small chart of the harbor and
environs.
1776. The seat of the late War at Boston, in the State of Massachusetts (7 X 10
inches), taking in Salem, Marsh field, and Worcester, is given .in the Universal Asylum
and Columbian Magazine, July, 1789.
1776. Plan of Boston in the Geschichte der Kriege in und aus Europa, Nuremberg,
1776.
1776. Carte du port et havre de Boston, par le Chevalier de Beaurain, Paris, 1776
(28 X. 23 inches). It bears the earliest known representation of the Pine-tree banner, in
the hands of a soldier, making part of the vignette. There are copies in the Massachu-
setts Historical Society Library, and in Harvard College Library.
1776. (?) There is in the collection of maps made in Paris for the State, by Ben Per-
ley Poore, and preserved in the State archives, one entitled, Carte de la Baye de Boston,
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INTRODUCTION. vii
situce dans la Nouvelle Angleterre (7 X 61A inches), which is marked, "Tome 1. No.
30," as if belonging to a series.
1776. Carle von dem Hafen und der stad Boston, mil den umliegenden Gegenden
und den Ldgern sowohl der Amerikaner als auch der Engldnder, von detn Cheval de
Beaurin, nach dem Pariser original von 1776. Frentzel, sculpt. This also appeared in the
first part of the Geographische Belustigungen, Leipsic, 1776, by J. C. Miiller, of which
there is a copy in Harvard College Library.
1778. The Atlas Ameriquain Septentrional, a Paris, chez Le Rouge, ingenieur Geo-
graphe du Rot, 1778, repeated the " Plan de Boston" from Jefferys' American Atlas of
1776, with names in English and descriptions in French. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., Sep-
tember, 1864. There was also an edition " after the original by M. Le Rouge, Austin
Street, 1777," styled La Nouvelle Angleterre en \feuilles.
1780. Carte particuliere du Havre de Boston, reduite de la carte anglaise de Des
Barres, par ordre de M. de Sartine, 1780 (23 X 34 inches). It has the seal of the " Depot
generale de la marine," and makes part of the Neptune Americo-Septentrional, publie par
ordre du Roi.
1780. Plan of the new Streets in Charlestoivn, with the alteration of the old. Sur-
veyed in 1780 by John Leach. No scale given. (25^ Xi9^ inches.) It shows parts of
Main and Henley streets, the Square, and Water Street. The names of all abutters on
the streets are given, with accurate measurements of each lot. It is manuscript.
1782. A New and Accurate Chart of the Harbour of Boston in New England in
North America (6^4 X 9 inches), published in the Political Magazine, November, 1827.
MAPS OF BOSTON SUBSEQUENT TO THE REVOLUTION. — The following
list gives all, or nearly all, the maps of Boston (including the harbor and
the vicinity, and considerable portions of the town or present city) pub-
lished between the close of the Revolution and the middle of the present
century : -
1784. Plan of the Town of Boston (9X6 inches). This map is interesting as show-
ing the outline of the " tri-mountain" in relation to the streets of 1784, when the original
elevation had not been materially changed. It appeared in the Boston Magazine, October,
1784, accompanying a Geographical Gazetteer of Massachusetts, which was originally issued
in instalments in that magazine. The original is in a copy of the magazine in the Boston
Public Library. It was re-engraved in the New York edition (1846) of A Short Narra-
tive of the Horrid Massacre, and in Kidder's History of the Boston Massacre, Albany,
1870. It resembles the London Magazine map of 1774.
1787. Dr. Belknap made a plan of so much of the town as was swept by the fire of
April in this year, which spread along Orange Street, taking Hollis Street church, extending
to Common Street. A fac-simile of his sketch is given in the Belknap Papers, i. 470.
1789. Chart of the Coast of America, from Cape Cod to Cape Elizabeth. Sold by
Matthew Clark, Boston, October, 1789. It has a marginal chart of Boston Harbor
(7X6 inches). This chart belongs to a collection of North American charts dedicated
by Clark to John Hancock.
1789. A map of the town (9^ X 7 inches), engraved by John Norman (who had his
printing office near the Boston Stone), which appeared in the Boston Directory^ of this
year, — the earliest one published. Dr. Belknap speaks of it as very imperfect. See
Belknap Papers, ii. 115, and Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., June, 1875.
1 This first Boston Directory was reprinted, again separately in that year, from the same
correcting the alphabetizing, in Dearborn's Bos- type. Copies of the first Directory usually want
ton Notions ; also in the Directory of 1852, and the map; the Public Library copy has it.
Vlll
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
1791. The American Pilot. Boston, John Xonnan, 1791. O. Carleton,1 Sept. 10,
1791, certifies on the title that he has compared the charts with Holland's and Des Barres',
and other good authorities. A map of the coast from Timber Island, Maine, to New York,
shows Boston Harbor (about 4X4 inches).
1794. Dr. Belknap sketched a plan of that part of the town lying between Washington
Street and Fort Hill, showing the new Tontine Crescent. A fac-simile is given in the
Belknap Papers, ii. 351.
1794. The English Pilot, London, Mount 6° Davidson, gives a large chart of the Sea
Coast of New England from Cape Cod to Casco Bay, lately Surveyed by Captain Henry
llarnsley. Sold by W. &> I.
Mount &> T. Page, London. It
gives a space of about three
inches square to Boston Har-
bor. The Pilot also contains
a large chart of the Coast of
New England from Staten Island to the Island of Breton, as it was actually surveyed by
Captain Cyprian Southack. Sold by I. Mount, T. Page, &> W. Mount, London. This
BOSTON LIGHT, 1 1%<)?
plate has a marginal Plan of Boston (n>£ X 7 inches), which seems to be Southack's
reduction of Bonner, made sixty years before, in 1733. See Vol. I. p. liv.
1794. Matthew Wellington's Map of Roxbury is the earliest manuscript map of that
part of the present city. See Drake's Town of Roxbury, p. 52. There are copies of this
at the State House and in the city surveyor's office.
1794. A Plan of Charlestown, surveyed in December, 1794 . . . By Sain1 Thompson,
surveyor. Scale, 200 rods to an inch. (\6l/2 X 10,^ inches.) It is stated in the margin
that there are 344 acres within the neck, and 3,940 without the neck; that White Island,
at the east end of Maiden Bridge, contains 16 acres ; and that the whole acreage therefore
1 Osgood Carleton was born at Haverhill in
1742, and died in 1816. He served in the Revo-
eral Court, in 1801. Muss. Hist. Soc. Proc., i.
p. 141. He was an original member of the Mas-
lution ; and after the war taught mathematics in sachusetts Society of the Cincinnati.
Boston, and published various maps, — among 2 This is a fac-simile of a plate in the Massa-
others a map of the State, by order of the Gen- chusetix Magazine, February, 1789.
INTRODUCTION.
IX
is 4,300, which includes Mystic Pond (200 acres), and also all brooks, creeks, and roads
in the town. The adjoining towns are shown by different colored lines. Only the county
roads in Charlestown are marked, and the site of the meeting-house on Town Hill is
indicated. This plan is now in the Secretary's office at the State House, and has never
been reproduced.
1795. An original map of the town, surveyed by Osgood Carleton for the selectmen,
is preserved in the city surveyor's office, Boston. City Document, No. 119, of 1879.
1795. Carleton's survey was used in a small map (14^ X 9 inches), which was en-
graved by Joseph Callender for the second Boston Directory, published by John West,
1796. This same date was kept on the map in the Directories of 1798 and 1800. In 1803
the date is omitted, and a few changes are made in the plate. In 1807 the map is en-
titled simply Plan of Boston, and the references are omitted.
1797. An accurate Plan of the Town of Boston, and its vicinity. . . . Also, part of
Charlestown and Cambridge, from the surveys of Samuel Thompson, Esq., and part
of Roxbury and Dorchester from those of Mr. Whitherington [sic] (all which surveys
CASTLE ISLAND, I 789.*
were taken by order of the General Court). By Osgood Carleton, teacher of mathemat-
ics in Boston. I. Norman, Sc. Published as the act directs, May 16, 1797. (37 X 40
inches.) See Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1880, p. 365. There is a heliotype of the Boston
part of it reduced, in Vol. IV., following the Harvard College copy.
1800. A new Plan of Boston, from actual surveys by Osgood Carleton, with correc-
tions, additions, and improvements. This is of the peninsula only (27 X 20 inches), and
is seemingly a section of the 1797 map. It was reproduced in 1878 by G. B. Foster, in
fac-simile, somewhat reduced.
1801. Plan of East Boston ; in Sumner's History of East Boston.
1803. See 1795 (Directory map).
1806. A new Plan of Boston, drawn from the best authorities, with the latest im-
provements, additions, and corrections. Boston, published and sold by W. Norm an, Pleas-
ant Street; sold also by William PeUiam, No. 59 Cornhill. This is the 1800 plan, with
the plate lengthened to include South Boston, " taken from the actual surveys of Mr.
1 This cut shows, in fac-simile, a plate of this fortification which appeared in the Massachusetts
Magazine, May, 1789.
VOL. III. — b.
X THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Withington " (35 X 19 inches). There are changes of ward-numbers and bounds. The
lower part of the plate, below Dover Street, is re-engraved. There is a copy in the Boston
Public Library.
1809. Directory map, published by Edward Cotton ; engraved by Callender (15 X 9/4
inches).
1814. A map showing houses and estates (28 X 36 inches), drawn by J. G. Hales,
engraved by T. Wightman. A fac-simile was issued by Alexander Williams in 1879.
1814. A plan "of the contemplated design of erecting perpetual tide-mills," engraved
by Dearborn, on wood, dated February, 1814. A copy in the American Antiquarian
Society's Library is indorsed by Isaiah Thomas, " Done by the new method of printing
the colors, 1813." This plan is given in reduced heliotype in Mr. Stanwood's chapter in
Vol. IV.
1817. Chart of Boston Harbor ; surveyed by Alexander Wadsworth, by order of
Commodore William Bainbridge ; engraved by Allen & Gaw ; published in Philadelphia
by John Melish in 1819; scale, 1500 feet to one inch (42 X 36 inches). Scale, 1500 feet
to one inch.
1818. Plan of the Charlestown Peninsula. . . . From accurate survey by Peter
Tuffs, Jr., Esq. Engraved by Annin fir* Smith, Boston. (21 X I7X inches). See
Mr. Edes's chapter in this volume.
1819. Boston and Vicinity (31^ X 25 inches), by John G. Hales, engraved by Edward
Gillingham. Some issues are dated 1820. To this year are ascribed two volumes of
original plans of streets, lanes, and abutting houses, made by Hales for the selectmen,
which are preserved in the city surveyor's department. See City Document No. 119, of
1879. Hales's engraved map was reissued, with revisions by Nathan Hale, in 1829 and
1833-
1821. Hales's Survey of Boston and Vicinity has a map of the Back Bay, showing the
"Great Dam," or Mill Dam.
1821. Blunt's New Chart of the New England Coast has a marginal chart of Boston
Harbor.
1824. Plan of Boston (4 X 6% inches), by Abel Bowen, shows the original water-
line and parts of the out-wharf. In Snow's History of Boston ; also in Bowen's Picture
of Boston, 1828 ; and in Snow's Geography of Boston, 1830.
1824. Plan of Boston (22 X 22 inches), by William B. Annin and G. G. Smith ; re-
issued frequently by Smith, and used in the municipal registers and school documents.
1826. Boston and Vicinity (6 X 3% inches), by A. Bowen ; in Snow's History of
Boston, 1826 and 1828 ; and in Bowen's Picture of Boston, 1828.
1828. Plan of Boston (\\}/2 X 9 inches), by Hazen Morse; in Boston Directory,
published by Hunt and Simpson, and then by Charles Simpson, Jr.; continued in use
till 1839, with changes and additions.
1829. See 1819.
1830. Plan of the Town of Charlestown, in the County of Middlesex .... made in
August, 1830, under direction of the Selectmen, conformable to Resolves of the Legislature
passed March i, 1830; by John G. Hales, surveyor. Scale, 100 rods to the inch. (26^
X 15 Vz inches.) The principal roads without the neck are laid down, and all the principal
streets on the peninsula are shown. This is drawn in india ink and colors ; is preserved
in the office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth, and has never been reproduced.
1831. Mitchell's United States has a map of Boston and Vicinity (4^ X 3X inches).
1831. Surveys of Dorchester (with Milton) made by Edmund J. Baker; lithographed
by Pendleton ; scale, 3 miles to I inch (33 X 26 inches).
1832. Town of Roxbury, by J. G. Hales ; scale, 100 rods to i inch (25 X I7>4 inches);
includes the present West Roxbury. It is reduced in F. S. Drake's Town of Roxbury.
1833. See 1819.
1835. Plan of Boston (4 X 2^ inches), by Annin; peninsula only; in Boston
Almanac.
INTRODUCTION. xi
1835. Map of Boston (21 X 21 inches); includes Charlestown and Lechmere Point;
engraved by G. G. Smith.
1835. Map of Boston (31 X 22 inches) ; drawn by Alonzo Lewis ; engraved by G. W.
Boynton ; published by the Bewick Company.
1836. Map of Massachusetts, from surveys ordered by the Legislature in 1830; has
a marginal map of Boston (5^ X 4#s inches); published by Otis, Broaders, & Co.
1837. Map of Boston ($}£ X 5 inches) ; engraved by Boynton for Boston Almanac ;
used in later years.
1837. Chart of Boston Harbor; surveyed by B. F. Perham; directed by commis-
sioners (L. Baldwin, S. Thayer, and James Hayward) appointed March, 1835.
3 837. 'A Plan of South Boston, old bridge to free bridge ; surveyed and drawn by B.
F. Perham, — L. Baldwin, S. Thayer. and J. Hayward, commissioners.
1837. A Plan of South Boston, East Boston, and Charlestown; surveyed and drawn
by B. F. Perham, — L. Baldwin, S. Thayer, and J. Hayward, commissioners.
1837. A Plan of Cambridge Bridge, and Boston and Roxbtiry Milldam ; was surveyed
and drawn by B. F. Perham, under authority of L. Baldwin, S. Thayer, and J. Hayward,
commissioners ; and of the same date and authority one of Cambridgeport, East Cam-
bridge, and Charlestown. \_No title.'}
1837. A Plan of Cambridgeport, East Cambridge, Charlestown, Chelsea, East Boston,
and South Boston; drawn by B. F. Perham, under the authority of the commissioners, L.
Baldwin, S. Thayer, and J. Hayward. [No title.'}
1838. Plan of Boston (15 X n inches); in T. G. Bradford's Illustrated Atlas of the
United States, Boston.
1838. Plan of Boston (\Sl/z X 9% inches), by Hazen Morse and J. W. Tuttle ; in
Boston Directory, 1839, and in later years.
1839. Plan of Boston (18 X 17 inches), showing Governor's and Castle islands; en-
graved by G. W. Boynton for Nathaniel Dearborn ; issued with various dates, and pub-
lished from 1860 to 1867, with alterations, by E. P. Dutton & Co. It is based on the 1835
map of Lewis.
1839. A Plan of Soutfi Boston, showing the additional wharves since 1835, also
harbor line recommended by Commissioners in 1839; drawn by G. P. Worcester, — H. A.
S. Dearborn, J. F. Baldwin, C. Eddy, commissioners.
1839. A plan of Charlestown, Chelsea, and East Boston, showing the harbor line ;
was drawn by G. P. Worcester under the authority of the commissioners, H. A. S. Dear-
born, J. F. Baldwin, and C. Eddy. \_No title}.
1839. A plan of Cambridgeport, East Cambridge, and Charlestown, showing the har-
bor line; recommended by the commissioners, H. A. S. Dearborn, J. F. Baldwin, and C.
Eddy. [No title'}.
1841. Boston and Vicinity, by Nathaniel Dearborn. It follows the large State map.
1842. Boston and Vicinity (4X4 inches) : in Mitchell's Traveller's Guide through
the United States; issued with later dates.
1842. Map of Boston (14 X n/^ inches); engraved by Boynton for Goodrich's
Pictorial Geography.
1842. Map of Boston*, including the Charlestown peninsula (15 X 12 inches); en-
graved by R. B. Davies for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, London.
1843. Map of the City of Roxbury (34 X 25 inches) ; surveyed in 1843 by Charles
Whitney ; published in 1849; scale, 1,320 feet to I inch.
1844. Topographical Map of Massachusetts, by Simeon Boyden, shows Boston Har-
bor, with considerable detail, on a size of about 5X5 inches.
1844. Map of Boston (11% X 9 inches); peninsula only; in Dickinson's Boston
Almanac.
1844. Map of East Boston (34 X 21 inches), by R. H. Eddy ; drawn by John Noble,
June, 1844.
1846. Map of Boston, including East and South Boston ; engraved by G. G. Smith.
Xll THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
1846. Mystic River ; J. Hayward, E. Lincoln, Jr., commissioners.
1846. Charles River to the head of tide waters; drawn by L. Briggs, Jr., — J. Hayward,
and E. Lincoln, commissioners.
1846. Plan of part of the City and harbor, showing lines of high and" low water; by
G. R. Baldwin.
1846. South Bay ; J. Hayward, E. Lincoln, Jr., commissioners.
1847. Boston Harbor and the Approaches; from a trigonometrical survey, under the
direction of A. D. Bache, by commissioners S. T. Lewis and E. Lincoln.
1847. Plan of Boston ; an original manuscript plan, made by W. S. Whitwell for the
water commissioners; in the city surveyor's department. See City Document, 1879, No.
119.
1847. Chart of the Inner Harbor; T. G. Gary, S. Borden, E. Lincoln, commissioners ;
A. D. Bache, superintendent United States coast-survey.
1848. Plan of the City of Charlestown, made by order of the City Council from actual
survey; by Felton 6° Parker, and Ebenr. Barker. Scale, 400 feet to an inch. Litho-
graphed by J. H. Bufford, Boston. (32^ X 25 inches.)
1848. Map of Boston, including South and East Boston, by N. Dearborn.
1848. In N. Dearborn's Boston Notions, and engraved by him, appeared these maps :
i. Plan of Boston (6 X 4lO inches ; 2. Boston and Vicinity (3X4 inches) ; 3. Boston
Harbor (4% X 8 inches). These maps appeared in other of Dearborn's publications
about Boston, Guides, etc.
1849. Boston and Vicinity (ti X 9/4 inches); in Boston Almanac, and in Homans's
Sketches of Boston.
1849. J. H. Goldthwait's Railroad Map of New England\&s> a marginal map (2% X
2% inches) of Boston and vicinity.
1849. See Roxbury map of 1843.
1849. Chelsea Creek, between East Boston and Chelsea. Exhibiting the circumscribing
line to which wharves may be extended; surveyed by J. Low and J. Noble, — S. T. Lewis,
and E. Lincoln, Jr., commissioners.
1850. Map of Boston (11 X 9/4 inches) ; engraved by Boynton for the Boston
A Imanac.
1850. Map of Dorchester (36 X 28 inches); surveys made by Elbridge Whiting for
S. Dwight Eaton ; lithographed by Tappan and Bradford.
1850. Inner Harbor, showing commissioners'1 lines proposed by S. Greenleaf, J. Giles,
and E. Lincoln, commissioners.
1850. South Bay ; S. Greenleaf, J. Giles, and E. Lincoln, commissioners.
After this date the maps are very numerous.
CONTENTS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.
FRONTISPIECE. View of Charlestown during the Battle of Bunker Hill, taken
from Beacon Hill (described on p. 87) Facing titlepage
INTRODUCTION.
MAPS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD, i ; PLANS OF THE BATTLE OF BUNKER
HILL, i ; BRITISH LINES ON BOSTON NECK, v ; MAPS OF BOSTON SUBSEQUENT
TO THE REVOLUTION. The Editor vii
ILLUSTRATIONS: Plan of Boston (Gentleman's Magazine} in 1775, heliotype, i;
Nix's Mate in 1775, heliotype, i; Plan of Boston, 1775 (Pelham's), heliotype,
iii; Plan of Boston (Page's), heliotype, iii ; Boston Light in 1789, viii ; Castle
Island in 1789, ix.
AUTOGRAPHS : Henry Pelham, iii ; James Urquhart, iii ; Osgood Carleton, viii.
Efje Eeboluttonarg Iferiolr.
CHAPTER i.
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION. Edward G. Porter
ILLUSTRATIONS: James Otis, 6; Revenue Stamp, 12; Table of Stamps, 12; Lieut.-
Governor Oliver's Oath, 15; Letter by James Otis, 20; Boston Harbor from
Fort Hill, and Boston from Willis's Creek, two heliotypes, 23 ; Thomas
Gushing, 34; Samuel Adams, 35; Josiah Quincy, Jr., 37; Extract from John
Adams's brief, 38; Boston Massacre, 40; Andrew Oliver, 43; Revere's En-
graving of Hancock, 46; John Adams's diary on the Tea-party, 50; Earl
Percy, 58; Warren House, 59; General Warren, 60; Mrs. Warren, 63.
AUTOGRAPHS: Chas. Paxton, 4; James Otis, 6; Lord George Grenville, 8 ; Isaac
Barre, n ; Earl of Bute, 13; "The Sons of Liberty," 13; Duke of Grafton,
21; Lord North, 26; Town's Committee (Thomas Gushing, Jonathan
Mason, Edward Payne, Wm. Phillips, Joseph Waldo, Isaac Smith, Ebenezer
viii THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
AUTOGRAPHS (continued') :
Storer, Wm. Greenleaf), 29; General Knox, 32 ; Thomas Gushing, 34; Josiah
Quincy, Jr., 37; Samuel Shaw, 38; Sampson S. Blowers, 38; Benj. Lynde, 38;
letter signatures (James Bowdoin, Samuel Pemberton, Joseph Warren), 39;
Andrew Oliver, 43 ; Peter Oliver, 43; William Cooper, town clerk, 44; Earl
Percy, 58 ; Joseph Warren, 60 ; Adino Paddock, 62 ; Jedediah Preble, 64 ;
Artemas Ward, 64; Earl of Chatham, 65; General John Thomas, 65; Gen-
eral William Heath, 65.
CHAPTER II.
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON. Edward E. Hale 67
ILLUSTRATIONS: Paul Revere, 69; Fac-simile of " A Circumstantial Account"
(Apr. 19, 1775), 73; Gage's order, 76; Panorama from Beacon Hill in 1775,
heliotype, 79; Mifflin's plan of the lines on Boston Neck, heliotype, 80 ; Colonel
Trumbull's map of Boston and vicinity, heliotype, 80 ; British lines on Boston
Neck, looking in and out, two heliotypes, 80 ; plan of the redoubt on Bunker
Hill, 82; "General morning orders, June 17, 1775," fac-simile, 83; "On the
field," fac-simile, 86; After the Battle, 88; General Knox, 95; General Howe's
proclamation, 97; Washington at Dorchester Heights, 98; Major Judah
Alden, 99; Washington medal, heliotype, 100.
AUTOGRAPHS : Paul Revere, 69 ; John Parker, 74 ; Timothy Ruggles, 77 ; Israel
Putnam, 80 ; Admiral Samuel Graves, 81 ; General Wm. Howe, 81 ; General
Henry Clinton, 81 ; General John Burgoyne, 81 ; Colonel William Prescott,
82 ; Colonel Richard Gridley, 82 ; John Brooks, 83 ; General R. Pigot, 85 ;
Joseph Ward, 86; John Jeffries, 87 ; John Stark, 89 ; John Manly, 90 ; Judah
Alden, 99.
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. The Editor 101
ILLUSTRATIONS: Plan of Lexington fight, 102; Wadsworth house, 107 ; Holmes
house, 108; Artemas Ward, 109; Washington Elm, no; Craigie house,
112; Elmwood, 114; Roxbury parsonage, 115; plan of Roxbury fort, 115.
AUTOGRAPHS: Richard De/ens, 101 ; Peter Thacher, 103; James Barrett, 103;
R. Derby, 103 ; John Sullivan, 104 ; Daniel Morgan, 104 ; Thomas Learned,
104; Alexander Scammell, 105; John Nixon, 105; Nathanael Greene, 105,
117; Charles Lee, 105; William Bond, 105; Ebenezer Bridge, 106; Ralph
Inman, 106; Ephraim Doolittle, 107; Artemas Ward, 109; Benjamin
Church, in; William Eustis, in ; John Warren, 112 ; William Gamage, Jr.,
112; Joseph Reed, 113; John Glover, 113 Andrew Craigie, 113; Wil-
liam Prescott, 115; John Greaton, 116; Thomas Chase, 116; Ebenezer
Learned, 1 17.
CHAPTER III.
THE PULPIT, PRESS, AND LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. Delano A. Goddard 119
ILLUSTRATIONS: Joseph Green, 132; The .\fassachusetts Spy, fac-simile, 135; The
Independent Chronicle, fac-simile, 139; fac-simile of Wrarren's second Massa-
cre Oration, 143.
AUTOGRAPHS: Samuel Mather, 127 ; John Mein, 131 ; Daniel Leonard, 133; R.
T. Paine, 144; William Tudor, 144; Benjamin Church, Jr., 145; Phillis
Wheatlcy, 147.
CONTENTS. ix
CHAPTER IV.
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. Horace E. Scudder . . . 149
ILLUSTRATIONS: Liberty Tree, 159; Peace-extra (of 1783), 174.
AUTOGRAPHS : Boston merchants of the Revolutionary period (John Amory,
Richard Salter, Timothy Fitch, Daniel Malcom, Alexander Hill, Richard
Gary, Joshua Henshaw, John Scott, Samuel Eliot, Henry Lloyd, John Erv-
ing, Jr., Joshua Winslow, Samuel Hughes, Thomas Gray, Thomas Amory, J.
Rowe, Jos. Green, Edward Payne, Nicholas Boylston, John Hancock, Wil-
liam Bowes, Ebenezer Storer, William Coffin, Sol. Davy, John Barrett,
Nathaniel Greene, Thomas Russell, Jno. Spconer, Joseph Lee, Joseph Sher-
burne, W. Phillips, John Avery, Isaac Winslow, Wm. Fisher, Benjamin
Hallowell, Jona. Williams, Nathaniel Appleton, Daniel Hubbard, Jona.
Mason, Henderson Inches, Nathaniel Gary, Harrison Gray, Jr.), 152, 153;
John Lovell, 160; James Lovell, 160; French officers (Lauzun, Comte de
Grasse, Barras, De Ternay, Comte de Rochambeau), 166; Lafayette, 173.
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. The Editor ..175
ILLUSTRATIONS : Washington's proclamation, 181 ; Order to Captain Hopkins,
184 ; Bill for pine-tree flag, 188.
AUTOGRAPHS : William Tudor, 185 ; Baron Steuben, 185 ; Solomon Lovell, 185 ;
Peleg Wads worth, 186 ; Artemas Ward, 186.
2Last f^untireU Jfears.
PART I.
CHAPTER I.
THE LAST FORTY YEARS OF TOWN GOVERNMENT. Henry Cabot Lodge . . . 189
ILLUSTRATIONS: John Adams, 192; James Bowdoin, 195; Washington, 198;
Triumphal arch, 200; Hancock house, 202; Hamilton statue, 206; Gerry-
mander, 212; George Cabot, 214.
AUTOGRAPHS: George R. Minot, 194; B. Lincoln, 194; John Hancock, 201;
Increase Sumner, 204; Moses Gill, 205; Caleb Strong, 205; James Sullivan,
208: Elbridge Gerry, 211; Massachusetts signers at Hartford Convention
(George Cabot, Nathan Dane, H. G. Otis, Wm. Prescott, Timothy Bigelow,
Joshua Thomas, Saml. S. Wilde, Joseph Lyman, Stephen Longfellow, Jr.,
Daniel Waldo, George Bliss, Hadijah Baylies), 213.
CHAPTER II.
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS. James M. Bugbee 217
ILLUSTRATIONS: John Phillips, 223; Josiah Quincy, 227; Quincy Market and
Faneuil Hall, 228 ; Park Street, 232 ; Harrison Gray Otis, 235 ; Theodore
Lyman, 237 ; Samuel A. Eliot, 244.
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
AUTOGRAPHS : H. G. Otis, 235 ; the mayors (John Phillips, Josiah Quincy, H. G.
Otis, Theodore Lyman, Jr., Charles Wells, Samuel A. Eliot, Samuel T. Arm-
strong, Jonathan Chapman, M. Brimmer, Thomas A. Davis, Josiah Quincy,
Jr., Benjamin Seaver, John P. Bigelow, J. V. C. Smith, Alexander H. Rice,
F. W. Lincoln, Jr., J. M. Wightman, Otis Norcross, N. B. Shurtleff, William
Gaston, Henry L. Pierce, Samuel C. Cobb, Frederick O. Prince), 290, 291.
CHAPTER III.
BOSTON AND THE COMMONWEALTH UNDER THE CITY CHARTER. John D. Long 293
CHAFFER IV.
BOSTON SOLDIERY IN WAR AND PEACE. Francis W. Palfrey 303
ILLUSTRATIONS: Thomas G. Stevenson, 317; William F. Bartlett, 318; Paul J.
Revere, 319 ; Robert G. Shaw, 321 ; Wilder Dwight, 322 ; Henry L. Abbott,
323 ; Soldiers' Monument, 324.
CHAPTER V.
THE NAVY AND THE CHARLESTOWN NAVY YARD. George Henry Preble . . 331
ILLUSTRATIONS : Plan of Navy Yard as originally purchased, 337 ; Isaac Hull,
339; plan of Navy Yard (in 1823), 342; (in 1828), 350; (in 1874), 366.
AUTOGRAPHS: Commandants (Samuel Nicholson, Wm. Bainbridge, Isaac Hull,
C. Morris, W. M. Crane, W. B. Shubrick, J. D. Elliot, John Downes, John
B. Nicholson, Foxhall A. Parker, F. H. Gregory, S. H. Stringham, W. L.
Hudson, J. B. Montgomery, E. G. Parrott, Chas. Steedman, John Rodgers,
Wm. F. Spicer, E. T. Nichols, M. Haxtun, F. A. Parker, George M.
Ransom), 352, 353.
CHAPTER VI.
THE ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT IN BOSTON. James Freeman Clarke . . . . 369
ILLUSTRATIONS: William Lloyd Garrison, 373; Charles Sumner, 391 ; Theodore
Parker, 394.
AUTOGRAPHS: Theodore Parker, 394; John A. Andrew, 400.
CHAPTER VII.
THE CONGREGATIONAL (TRINITARIAN) CHURCHES. Increase N. Tarbox . . . 401
ILLUSTRATIONS : Lyman Beecher, 408.
AUTOGRAPHS : Joseph Eckley, 406 ; J. Morse, 407 ; E. D. Griffin, 407 ; John Cod-
man, 407 ; Wm. Jenks, 407 ; Lyman Beecher, 408 ; B. B. Wisner, 409 ; W.
Adams, 409; Justin Edwards, 409 ; N. Adams, 410; J. S. C. Abbott, 410;
Silas Aiken, 411 ; W. M. Rogers, 411 ; Samuel Green, 411 ; E. N. Kirk, 412 ;
W. I. Budington, 412 ; J. B. Miles, 413.
CONTENTS. xi
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BAPTISTS IN BOSTON. Henry M. King 421
ILLUSTRATION : Samuel Stillman, 422.
CHAPTER IX.
THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. Daniel Dorchester 433
CHAPTER X.
THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH. Phillips Brooks 447
ILLUSTRATIONS : Tremont Street (about 1800), 451 ; J. S. J. Gardiner, 453 ; Ruins
of Trinity (in 1872), 457.
CHAPTER XI.
THE UNITARIANS. Andrew Preston Peabody 467
ILLUSTRATIONS : James Freeman, 473 ; Joseph S. Buckminster, 475.
CHAPTER XII.
A CENTURY OF UNIVERSALISM. A. A. Miner 483
ILLUSTRATIONS: John Murray, 486; First Universalist meeting-house, 489;
Hosea Ballou, 493; Columbus Avenue Church, 501.
AUTOGRAPHS : John Murray, 486 ; Edward Mitchell, 490 ; Sebastian Streeter,
490 ; Abner Kneeland, 491 ; Edward Turner, 491 ; L. S. Everett, 491 ; Calvin
Gardner, 491 ; J. S. Thompson, 491 ; E. H. Chapin, 492 ; Thomas F. King,
492 ; T. S. King, 492 ; Hosea Ballou, 493 ; Thomas Whittemore, 497 ; Paul
Dean, 498 ; Walter Balfour, 499 ; H. Ballou, 2d, 502 ; J. G. Bartholomew,
502; Benj. Whittemore, 503; Lucius R. Paige, 503; Otis A. Skinner, 504;
Thomas B. Thayer, 504 ; Sylvanus Cobb, 504.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE NEW JERUSALEM CHURCH. James Reed 509
CHAPTER XIV.
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. William Byrne 515
ILLUSTRATIONS: Cathedral of the Holy Cross, 516; Bishop Cheverus, 518;
Mount Benedict, 522.
AUTOGRAPHS: John Thayer, 515; J. Carroll, 517; John Cheverus, 518; F. A.
Matignon, 519; P. Byrne, 519; Benedict, Bishop Fenwick, 520; John B.
Fitzpatrick, 526.
xii THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
CHAPTER XV.
CHARLESTOWN IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. Henry H. Edes 547
ILLUSTRATIONS: Richard Devens, 550; the Edes house, 553; Charlestown (in
1789), 554; Tufts's Map of Charlestown (in 1818), 568.
AUTOGRAPHS : Josiah Bartlett, 548 ; Nathaniel Gorham, 549 ; Richard Devens,
550; Walter Russell, 551 ; Samuel Swan, 551 ; Samuel Holbrook, 551 ; Phil-
lips Payson, 551; John Kettell, 551; Samuel Devens, 551; David Dodge,
551 ; Charles Devens, 551 ; John Leach, 552 ; Robt. B. Edes, 552 ; Wm. J.
Walker, 552; Josiah Wood, 552; Thomas Edes, Jr., 552; Samuel F. ]>.
Morse, 553; Joseph Cordis, 554; Joseph Hurd, 554; Samuel Sewall, 554;
Ebenezer Breed, 555; Nathan Tufts, 555; Nathaniel Austin, Jr., 555; Isaac
Rand, 555 ; Aaron Putnam, 556 ; Samuel Dexter, Jr., 557 ; Timothy Trum-
ball, 557 ; Franklin Dexter, 557 ; L. Baldwin, 557 ; M. Bridge, 557 ; Samuel
Payson, 558; Benjamin Frothingham, 559; Jedediah Morse, 560; \Vm. I.
Budington, 561 ; Thomas Prentiss, 562 ; James Walker, 562 ; David Wood,
Jr., 562; William Austin, 564; Thomas Russell, 564 ; Richard Frothingham,
566; Thomas B. Wyman, 566; Solomon Willard, 566; Timothy Walker,
567 ; Oliver Holden, 570.
CHAPTER XVI.
ROXBURY IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. Francis S. Drake 571
ILLUSTRATIONS: Henry Dearborn, 574; Meeting-house Hill (in 1790), 577.
AUTOGRAPHS: H. Dearborn, 574; W. Eustis, 575.
CHAPTER XVII.
DORCHESTER IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. Samuel J. Barrows . . . . 589
ILLUSTRATION : Thaddeus Mason Harris, 593.
CHAPTER XVIII.
BRIGHTON IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. Francis S. Drake 60 1
ILLUSTRATION : The Winship mansion, 608.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHELSEA, REVERE, AND WINTHROP FROM THE CLOSE OF THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
Mellen Chamberlain 6 1 1
CHAPTER XX.
THE PRESS AND LITERATURE OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. Charles A.
Cummings 617
ILLUSTRATIONS: Benjamin Russell, 619; George Ticknor, 661 ; Ticknor's li-
brary, 662; Prescott's library, 667; Edward Everett, 671 ; original draft of
Longfellow's "Excelsior," fac-simile, 673 ; Verse from Lowell's "Courtin',"
fac-simile, 674.
CONTENTS. xiii
AUTOGRAPHS: Benj. Russell, 619; Nathan Hale, 628; Epes Sargent, 630; Joseph
T. Buckingham, 631; Jeremy Belknap, 635 ; Willard Phillips, 639; J. Q.
Adams, 642 ; Jared Sparks, 647 ; C. M. Sedgwick, 648 ; L. Maria Child, 648 ;
Jacob Abbott, 649 ; Richard H. Dana, 650 ; Charles Sprague, 650 ; John
Pierpont, 651 ; S. Margaret Fuller, 656 ; George Ticknor, 661 ; Samuel G.
Howe, 664 ; George Bancroft, 665 ; W. H. Prescott, 666 ; Daniel Webster,
670; J. L. Motley, 670; Edward Everett, 671; J. R. Lowell, 674; Oliver
Wendell Holmes, 674; John G. Whittier, 675; Nathaniel Hawthorne, 676;
H. B. Stowe, 678 ; R. H. Dana, Jr., 679 ; G. S. Hillard, 679 ; Edward E.
Hale, 680; E. P. W hippie, 681.
INDEX 683
THE
MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON
Betoiuttonar?
CHAPTER I.
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION.
BY THE REV. EDWARD G. PORTER,
Pastor of the Hancock Church, Lexington.
WHATEVER period we fix upon as the beginning of the American
Revolution, we are sure to find some preceding event which, in a
greater or less degree, might justly claim recognition on that account. It
has generally been conceded that the war opened with the outbreak of
hostilities on the morning of April 19, 1775; and that opinion will prob-
ably never be reversed. But as there were reformers before the Reforma-
tion, so there were many public acts in the Province deemed revolutionary
before the memorable engagement on .Lexington Common. Blood had
been previously shed in a collision between the king's troops and American
citizens in the streets of Boston. Remonstrances against the arbitrary
measures of the British Government had repeatedly taken the shape of open
and defiant resistance. The Congress of 1765 had issued a Declaration of
Rights which, though accompanied by expressions of loyalty to the king,
was a very pronounced step towards colonial union and independence.
The utterances of Franklin, of Otis, and of Samuel Adams, and the favor
with which they were received, clearly indicated the ardent aspirations of
the people for political liberty. Every successive encroachment of the
Crown was met by an immediate and determined protest. For years the
public mind had been in a state of such chronic agitation that the peace
was at any time liable to be disturbed by acts of violence.
It is greatly to the credit of the colonists, as British subjects, that the
final rupture was so long in coming. They would certainly have been justi-
fied in the judgment of mankind had they precipitated rebellion in the
VOL. III. — I.
2 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
earlier stages of their oppression. When we remember what indignities
had been heaped upon them ever since the abrogation of the charter in
1684; when we recall the sufferings to which they were subjected by the
passage of the numerous navigation laws restricting their commerce and
prostrating their industries; when we bear in mind that the affection, which
for a century and a half the colonists sincerely cherished for the mother
country, was never cordially reciprocated, — we are not surprised that a feel-
ing of estrangement at last grew up among them. The wonder is that it
did not assert itself long before. For, be it remembered, the spirit of free-
dom which took up arms in 1775 was not a sudden development nor an
accidental discovery. The people had always had it. They brought it with
them from the Old World, where, from the days of King John, it had been
the birthright of the English race.1
And so the Revolution, when it came, was only the assertion of this old
principle, — a fundamental principle with the colonists, and one which they
had never surrendered. Under its guidance they had repeatedly engaged in
acts which they considered lawful and patriotic, but which the officers of
government condemned as refractory, rebellious, or treasonable. These
public acts, extending through many years, constitute no unimportant part
of our history, since they contributed largely to bring about the final issue,
and, by their close relation to subsequent events, belong to the Revolu-
tionary period.
The excitement in Boston during the winter of 1760-61, connected with
the application of officers of the customs for writs of assistance in searching
houses for contraband goods, must ever be regarded as one of the most
important of the early movements foreshadowing the approaching conflict.
To understand the bearing of this event, it is necessary to take a glance at
the condition of political affairs at that time.
George III. had just come to the throne. Canada had been conquered
from the French. England, flushed with victory, was yet oppressed with a
heavy debt ; and the attention of her ministers was turned to the system of
colonial administration with a view to a large increase of the revenue. The
Colonies came out of the war with many losses, to be sure, but trained and
strengthened by hardship, encouraged by success, and eager to return to
the pursuits of peace. The population was increasing; new and valuable
lands were occupied ; and business began to revive with extraordinary
rapidity.
From this period we can distinctly trace the growth of two opposing
political principles, both of which had existed in New England side by
side from the very beginning with only an occasional clashing, but which
now were destined to contend with each other in an irrepressible conflict.
1 [The development of the spirit is more ad- outcome of independence was not faced seriously
mirably traced than elsewhere in Richard Froth- till quite late. For references in this matter see
ingham's Rise of the Republic. The inevitable Winsor's Handbook, p. 102. — En.]
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION. 3
These principles found expression in the two parties long existing,1 but
which now began to draw apart more and more ; namely, the party of free-
dom, and the party of prerogative, — the former insisting upon the right of
self-government under the Crown, and the latter maintaining the authority
of the Crown in the place of self-government. The question at issue was a
radical one, and upon it turned the whole history of the country.
Without stopping to discuss the weakness of England's position, the want
of statesmanship in her councils, and the strange infatuation with which she
pursued her fatal policy, we cannot overlook certain acts of trade which at
this time were enforced by the Court of Admiralty, and which were designed
to make the enterprising commercial spirit of America tributary to Great
Britain. Much of the mischief brought upon the Colonies can be traced to
the Board of Trade, — a powerful organization devised originally by Charles
II. and re-established by William III. to regulate the national and colonial
commerce. Though only an advisory council, having no executive power,
its influence with the king and ministry was such that its recommendations
were usually adopted. Burke2 speaks of this notable body as a kind of
political "job, a sort of gently-ripening hot-house, where eight members of
Parliament receive salaries of a thousand a year for a certain given time, in
order to mature, at a proper season, a claim to two thousand." The Board
was intended to make the Colonies " auxiliary to English trade. The
Englishman in America was to be employed in making the fortune of the
Englishman at home."3
At the time of which we are now speaking, a profitable though illicit
trade had sprung up between the northern colonies and the West Indies.
Instructions were sent to the colonial governors to put a stop to this trade.
Francis Bernard, late Governor of New Jersey, and a well known friend of
British authority, having succeeded Pownall as Governor of Massachusetts,
informed the Legislature in a speech shortly after his arrival " that they
derived blessings from their subjection to Great Britain." The Council, in
a carefully worded reply, joined in acknowledging the " happiness of the
times," but instead of recognizing their " subjection," they spoke only of
their " relation " to Great Britain ; and the House, weighing also its words,
spoke of " the connection between the mother country and the provinces
on the principles of filial obedience, protection, and justice." 4 An oppor-
tunity soon occurred to show that the difference in language between the
Royal Governor and the General Court was a deep-seated difference of
principle and of purpose.
For many years the custom-house officers had availed themselves of
their position to accumulate large sums, especially from a misuse of forfeit-
1 [They were exemplified in the long strug- 2 Speech on the Economical Reform.
gle for the maintenance of the first charter 8 Palfrey, History of New England, vol. iv.
(see Mr. Deane's chapter in Vol. I.), and in the p. 21.
conflict over the royal governors' salaries sub- 4 Barry, Hist, of Mass., ii. 256; Bancroft, iv.
sequently (see Dr. Ellis's chapter in Vol. II). 378; and Dr. Ellis's chapter in Vol. II. of this
— ED.] History.
4 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
ures under the old Sugar Act of 1733. This practice, added to the official
rigor and party spirit with which they enforced the commercial laws, led to
a general and deep-seated feeling of antipathy towards them on the part
of the merchants.1 This antipathy was greatly aggravated by a decision in
the Superior Court against the treasurer of the Province, and in support of
the attitude of the officers of customs.2
In November, 1760, Charles Paxton,3 who was the head of the customs
in Boston, instructed a deputy in Salem to petition the Court for "writs of
assistance," to enable them forcibly
to enter dwelling-houses and ware-
./ I / houses in the execution of
f^JL/ >r JL^^fZ/7^ their duty- ExcePtions were
at once taken to this applica-
tion, and a hearing was asked for by James Otis, an ardent young patriot,
whose connection with this case forms one of the most brilliant chapters in
our history. At the first agitation of the question he held the post of
advocate-general for the Colony, but rather than act for the Crown he had
resigned the position. " This is the opening scene of American resistance.4
It began in New England, and made its first battle-ground in a court-room.
A lawyer of Boston, with a tongue of flame and the inspiration of a seer,
stepped forward to demonstrate that all arbitrary authority was unconstitu-
tional and against the law."5 The trial came on in February, 1761. Thomas
Hutchinson, who had just succeeded Stephen Sewall as chief-justice, sat
with his four associates, " with voluminous wigs, broad bands, and robes of
scarlet cloth," in the crowded council chamber of the old Boston town house,
" an imposing and elegant apartment, ornamented with two splendid full-
length portraits of Charles II. and James II." The case was opened for the
Crown by Jeremiah Gridley as the king's attorney, and the validity of writs
of assistance was maintained by an appeal to statute law and to English
practice. Oxenbridge Thacher calmly replied with much legal and technical
ability, claiming that the rule in English courts was not applicable in this
case to America. James Otis 6 now appeared for the inhabitants of Boston,
and in an impassioned speech of over four hours in length he swayed both
the court and the crowded audience with marvellous power. He said : —
1 A petition was sent to the General Court 4 John Adams to the Abbe Mably. Works,
at this time, charging the officers of the Crown v. 492.
with appropriating to their own use moneys be- 6 Bancroft, iv. 414.
longing to the Province. This petition was ° This eloquent champion of liberty was a
signed by over fifty leading merchants, whose native of Barnstable, and a graduate of liar-
names may be found in Drake's Hist, of Boston, vard in 1743. He began the practice of law at
657, note. Plymouth, but two years later removed to Boston,
2 Hutchinson, Massachusetts Ray, iii. 89-92 ; where he rose to distinction as an earnest advo-
Minot, Hist, of Mass., ii. 80-87 ! Barry, 262, 263. cate of his country's rights. His father, the elder
3 [There is a portrait of Paxton in the Otis, was a distinguished politician and Speaker
Mass. Hist. Society's gallery. One, supposed to of the House, and a candidate for the vacant
be by Copley, is in the American Antiqua- judgeship which Governor Bernard had given to
rian Society at Worcester. It is not recognized Hutchinson. See Tudor's Life of Otis ; Hutch-
by Perkins. — ED.] inson, iii. 86, et seq.; Barry, pp. 258-259.
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION. 5
" I am determined, to my dying day, to oppose, with all the powers and facul-
ties God has given me, all such instruments, of slavery on the one hand and villany
on the other, as this writ of assistance is. ... I argue in favor of British liberties
at a time when we hear the greatest monarch upon earth declaring from his throne
that he glories in the name of Briton, and that the privileges of his people are dearer
to him than the most valuable prerogatives of the Crown. I oppose that kind of power
the exercise of which, in former periods of English history, cost one King of England
his head and another his throne."
Otis then proceeded to argue that while special writs might be legal, the
present writ, being general, was illegal. Any one with this writ might be a
tyrant. Again, he said, this writ was perpetual. There was to be no return,
and whoever executed it was responsible to no one for his doings. He
might reign secure in his petty tyranny, and spread terror and desolation
around him. The writ was also unlimited. Officers might enter all houses
at will, and command all to assist them ; and even menial servants might
enforce its provisions. He said : —
" Now the freedom of one's house is an essential branch of English liberty.
A. man's house is his castle ; and while he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince.
This writ, if declared legal, totally annihilates this privilege. Custom-house officers
might enter our houses when they please, and we could not resist them. Upon bare
suspicion they could exercise this wanton power. . . . Both reason and the Con-
stitution are against this writ. The only authority that can be found for it is a law
enacted in the zenith of arbitrary power, when, in the reign of Charles II., Star Chamber
powers were pushed to extremity by some ignorant clerk of the exchequer. But
even if the writ could be elsewhere found, it would still be illegal. All precedents are
under the control of the principles of law. . . . No acts of Parliament can establish
such a writ. Though it should be made in the very words of the petition it would
be void, for every act against the Constitution is void." *
Notwithstanding this forcible argument, and the soul-stirring eloquence
with which it was presented, it did not prevail. The older members of the
1 It is greatly to be regretted that this cele- rior Court, 1761-1772, which were published in
brated speech, which, in the judgment of many, 1865, edited by his great-grandson General Sam-
originated the party of Revolution in Massachu- uel M. Quincy, with an appendix on the writs of
setts, was never committed to writing. For such assistance by Horace Gray, the present Chief-
fragments of it as we have we are indebted to a Justice of the Commonwealth. The late Horace
few notes taken at the time, and to some inci- Binney of Philadelphia wrote of the book, at the
dental allusions found in letters of Bernard and time, to Miss E. S. Quincy : " I have now read
Hutchinson. John Adams, late in life, "after a the reports, and with great satisfaction. They
lapse of fifty-seven years," wrote out, by request, had good law in Massachusetts in the days of
as much as he could remember of the argument your grandfather, as well as good lawyers and
of the speech. See Minot, ii. 91-99; Tudor's a good reporter. Mr. Gray's appendix is one of
Life of Otis; Bancroft, iv. 416, note; Corres- the most clear, accurate, and exhaustive exposi-
pondence of John Adams and Mrs. Warren in 5 tions that I have read, and has brought me much
Mass. Plist. Coll. iv. 340; Essex Inst. Hist. Coll. better instruction than I had before. I rather
Aug. 1860; Adams's Life and Works of John think they were legal under the act of Parlia-
Adams,'\. 59,81,82; ii. 124, 523, 524. [The case ment. but I cannot believe they were constitu-
can be studied from a contemporary point of tional, either here or in England, except as any-
view in the reports made by the Josiah Quincy thing an act of Parliament does is constitu-
of that day, of cases in the Massachusetts Supe- tional " — ED.]
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
court were favorably disposed; but they yielded to the solicitations of
Hutchinson, who proposed to continue the cause to the next term, in order,
meanwhile, to apply to England for definite instructions. In due time the
answer came, in support of his well known position ; and the court, with the
semblance of authority rather than law, decided that the writs of assistance
should be granted whenever the revenue officers applied for them.2
1 [This cut follows a painting by Blackburn,
in 1755, now owned by Mrs. Henry Darwin
Rogers, by whose permission it is here copied.
Having been more than once before engraved
(see A. B. Durand's in Tudor's Life of Otis ;
another by I. R. Smith ; and a poor one in Loring's
Hundred Boston Orators'], it was admirably put
on steel by Schlecht, in 1879, f°r Bryant and
Gay's United States, iii. 332. There is a gene-
alogy of the Otis family in N. E. Hist, and Geneal.
Reg. iv. and v. ; also see Freeman's History of
Cape CoJ. Otis at one time lived where the
Adams Express Company's building on Court
.Street now is. No American has received a
more splendid memorial than Crawford has be-
stowed on Otis in the statue in the chapel at
Mount Auburn. See an estimate of Otis in Mr.
Goddard's chapter in the present volume. — ED.]
2 Hutchinson, iii. 96; Bancroft, iv. 418;
Barry, p. 267.
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION. 7
But Thacher and Otis had not spoken in vain.1 They had electrified
the people, and scattered the seeds which soon germinated in a spirit of
combined resistance against the encroachments of unlawful power. Among
those attending the court was the youthful John Adams, who had just been
admitted as a barrister, and whose soul was ready to receive the patriotic
fire from the lips of Otis. " It was to Mr. Adams like the oath of Hamilcar
administered to Hannibal. It is doubtful whether Otis himself, or any person
of his auditory, perceived or imagined the consequences which were to flow
from the principles developed in that argument." 2 Patriots were created
by it on the spot, — men who awoke that day as from a sleep, and shook
themselves for action. Every one felt that a crisis was approaching in the
affairs of the Province, if indeed it had not already come.
In tracing the causes which led to the final independence of America,
it is always to be borne in mind that independence, in the political sense
of the word, was not what the colonists originally desired. They were
proud of their position as British subjects ; and not until their loyalty had
endured a long series of shocks, did it occur to any one that a separation
was either possible or desirable. This will explain the docility with which
the people of New England submitted to gross abuses and high-handed
political measures through a period of over thirty years without doing
more than to assert their rights, and to seek peaceable means of redress.
They loved the mother country, and rejoiced in her prosperity.3 Her his-
tory, her greatness, her triumphs, were all theirs. Their literature, their
laws, their social life, their religious faith, were all English. Most of the
towns and counties in Massachusetts were named after those in England,
showing the affection the colonists had for the country from which they
came. The architecture of Boston houses was almost an exact reproduc-
tion of that which prevailed in London or Bristol. A relationship of
blood, of affection, and of interest was maintained by the closest com-
munication which that age afforded. Packets were continually plying
between the two countries ; personal and business correspondence was
frequent; and, in ordinary times, this intimacy was not affected by the
official character and conduct of those who represented British authority
on these shores. If the exercise of that authority had not exceeded its
just limits, it would certainly have been a long time before the colonists
would have demanded or accepted anything like a political separation.
They were not adventurers, seeking capital out of conflict, but peaceable,
industrious, law-abiding citizens ; asking only for equality with their fellow-
subjects, and deliverance from special and unequal legislation. They knew
their rights under the charter, and were resolved to maintain them ; and
in this they were simply true to the traditions of the Anglo-Saxon race
1 [The lawyers engaged in this cause are 2 C. F. Adams's Life of John Adams, i. 81.
characterized in the chapter in Vol. IV. by Mr. 8 Greene, Historical View of the American
John T. Morse, Jr. — ED.] Revolution, pp. 5, 6.
8 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
from which they sprang. Their lot was cast in troublous times, but the
trouble was not of their fomenting. They never invoked revolution, but
were driven to it at last against their will by the stern logic of events.
One of these events has already been described ; but properly speaking,
the great struggle did not begin with the excitement attending the appli-
cation for writs of assistance. That excitement did not affect the coun-
try at large, nor did it seriously disturb the loyalty of the people of
Boston. It led to much discussion and speculation, but to no organized
resistance.
The first direct occasion for the uprising in America was the attempt on
the part of the British Government to raise a revenue from the Colonies
without their consent and without a representation in Parliament. Upon
this turned the whole controversy, which lasted more than ten years and
terminated in the final appeal to arms.
After the Peace of Paris,1 England took a position of undisputed su-
premacy among the great powers of Europe. Her political and diplomatic
influence was greatly increased by her military successes and her new terri-
torial acquisitions. But this pre-eminence was attended by an exhausted
treasury, and the first important question for her statesmen to ask was, how
to increase the revenue. The American colonies, it was known, were gain-
ing rapidly in population and wealth. There was no doubt of their ability
to furnish large sums to the Crown. The people were loyal, and would be
likely to sustain further draughts upon their resources.
So reasoned Charles Townshend, first lord of trade and secretary for the
colonies in the new ministry formed by the Earl of Bute. No sooner did
Townshend take office than he was ready with his audacious scheme to
ignore charters, precedents, laws, and, honor; to abrogate the rights and
privileges of colonial legislatures ; and to give Parliament absolute author-
ity to tax an unwilling people to whom the privilege of representation had
never been granted.
Townshend's scheme, in the form in which he presented it, did not suc-
ceed ; but shortly after, — in March, 1763, — Grenville, first lord of the ad-
miralty, eager to advance the inter-
British trade, brought in a
for the further improvement
// // U °^ ^s maJesty's revenue of the cus-
Y toms," authorizing naval officers on
the American coast to act as custom-house officers. This bill soon passed
both Houses and became a law.2
Bute's ministry was of short duration. Grenville soon took his place,
supported by Egremont and Halifax, and retaining Jenkinson as principal
secretary of the treasury. This triumvirate ministry was so unpopular as
to become a "general joke;"3 and was called "the three Horatii," "the
1 Signed in February, 1763. :: \Valpole to Mann, April 30, 1763. See Lord
2 Bancroft, v., 92 ; Barry, ii. 278. Mahon (Stanhope), ///j/0ry of England, xli.
. miralt
v I Vr ) ests °
ti^JT/^- Urt^W~lMj£_^S bill "
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION. 9
Athanasian administration," a "sort of Cerberus," a "three-headed monster,
quieted by being gorged with patronage and office." 1
One of Grenville's earliest measures was a bill for enforcing the Naviga-
tion Acts, in which he met with no opposition from Parliament or the King.
His next plan was to provide for the army in America by taxing the
Colonies. Upon this matter he consulted the board of trade, to ascertain
" in what mode least burdensome and most palatable to the Colonies they
can contribute toward the support of the additional expense which must
attend their civil and military establishment." 2 The head of the board of
trade was now the young Earl of Shelburne, an Irish peer, who was begin-
ning to have great influence in British councils. On many questions he was
a follower of Pitt, and was naturally opposed to extending the authority of
Parliament. His reply gave no encouragement to the ministry; yet they
continued pursuing their favorite project, and did all in their power to
create a public sentiment in its favor. Before any action was taken Egre-
mont died, and Shelburne was succeeded by the Earl of Hillsborough.
Grenville now renewed his exertions for the passage of a revenue bill ; and
at a meeting of the lords of the treasury — Grenville, North, and Hunter —
in Downing Street, on the morning of September 22, a minute was
adopted directing their secretary, Jenkinson, " to write to the commis-
sioners of the stamp duties to prepare a draught of a bill to be presented
to Parliament for extending the stamp duties to the Colonies." 3 In obedi-
ence to this order the famous Stamp Act was prepared, and subsequently
presented to Parliament. Probably its origin is not due to any one man.
Bute thought of it, Jenkinson elaborated it, North supported it, Grenville
demanded it, and England accepted it. It has generally been called, and with
good reason, Grenville's pleasure. Whatever of credit or of odium attaches
to it must be given to him. He did not expect the favor of the Colonies,
but he was anxious to secure support at home; and as there was some
doubt of the bill's passing without an exciting debate, he did not press the
matter at once. Hoping also, possibly, to conciliate the Colonies, he yielded
to the urgent solicitations of some of their representatives 4 who maintained
that the proposed stamp duty was " an internal tax," and therefore that it
would be better to " wait till some sort of consent to it shall be given
by the several assemblies, to prevent a tax of that nature from being levied
without the consent of the Colonies." 5 And so, " out of tenderness to the
Colonies," the bill was not brought in for a year.
Meanwhile the Administration succeeded in carrying a measure, April
5, 1764, imposing duties on various enumerated foreign commodities im-
ported into America, and upon colonial products exported to any other
^v
1 Wilkes to Earl Temple, in Grenville Papers, sylvania; and Richard Jackson, his own private
ii. 81. secretary.
2 Bancroft, v. 107. 5 Grenville Correspondence, ii. 393; Massa-
8 Treasury Minutes, Sept. 22, 1763; Jenkin- chusetts Gazette, May 10, 1764; Bancroft, v. 183;
son's Letter, Sept. 23, 1763; Bancroft, v. 151. Barry, p. 284; Fitzmaurice, Life of William, Earl
* Thomas Penn and William Allen, of Penn- of Shelburne, i. 318, 319.
VOL. III. — 2.
10 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
place than Great Britain. A heavy duty was also laid upon molasses and
sugar. To enforce the provisions of this bill, enlarged power was given to
the vice-admiralty courts, and penalties under the act were made recover-
able in these courts.1
The news of the passage of the Sugar Act stirred up an intense com-
motion in all the maritime towns of America; the merchants everywhere
held meetings, adopted memorials to the assemblies, and sent protests to
England. In Boston, James Otis prepared a Statement of the Rights of the
Colonies, and Oxenbridge Thacher expressed similar views in a pamphlet
entitled Sentiments of a British- American?' A committee — Otis, Gushing,
Thacher, Gray, and Sheafe — was also appointed to correspond with the
other Colonies ; and circulars were sent out stating the dangers that menaced
" their most essential rights," and desiring the " united assistance " of all
to secure, if possible, a repeal of the obnoxious acts, and to " prevent a
stamp act, or any other impositions and taxes, upon this and the other
American provinces." 3
The Legislature, which had been prorogued month after month by Gov-
ernor Bernard, to impede its action, finally met in October. Letters were
received from the agents in England, and an address to the King was pre-
pared ; but as it failed of acceptance with the Council, it gave place to a
milder address to the House of Commons, stating the objections which had
been urged against the Sugar Act, and praying for a further delay of the
Stamp Act.4
With the year 1765 the long dreaded measure, which had come to be
regarded as the very symbol of usurpation, came into effect. At the open-
ing of Parliament in January, Grenville presented the American question as
one of obedience to the authority of the kingdom ; and shortly after, with
the support of Townshend, Jenyns,5 and others, he proposed a series of
resolutions, fifty-five in number, embracing the details of the Stamp Act,
— the essential feature being the requirement that all /Jgal and business
documents in the colonies should be written on printed or stamped paper,
to be had only of the tax collectors. All offences under this act were
to be tried in the admiralty courts, and the taxes were to be collected
arbitrarily, without any trial by jury.
1 Minot, ii. 155; Holmes, Annals, ii. 125,^ against. To what purpose will opposition to
seq.; Barry, ii. 286. any resolutions of the ministry be, if they are
2 Both published in Boston, June, 1764. The passed with such rapidity as to render it impos-
General Court sent a letter of instructions to Mr. sible for us to be acquainted with them before
Mauduit, the agent of Massachusetts in London, they have received the sanction of an act of
expressing the state of feeling. " If all the Col- Parliament ? A people may be free and toler-
onies," says the letter, "are to be taxed at pleas- ably happy without a particular branch of trade ;
ure, without any representation in Parliament, but without the privilege of assessing their own
what will there be to distinguish them, in point taxes, they can be neither." Minot, ii. 168-175;
of liberty, from the subjects of the most abso- Bradford, i. 21, 22.
lute prince? Every charter-privilege may be 8 Hutchinson, iii. no; Minot, ii. 175.
taken from us by an appendix to a money bill, 4 Massachusetts Records ; Journal House of
which, it seems, by the rules on the other side of Representatives, 1764, p. 102.
the water, must not at any rate be petitioned 5 Bancroft, v. 231-234.
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION. II
Grenville advocated his bill with many plausible arguments and explana-
tions. He had evidently anticipated all the difficulties it would encounter
in England, but he failed utterly to comprehend the situation it would
create in America. As was expected, it passed in a full house, February
27, without serious opposition, obtaining a majority of five to one. Among
those who spoke and voted against it the names of Jackson, Beckford,
Conway, and Barr6 deserve especial mention, as they afterward received
the thanks of the Province for their services.
Colonel Barre l will always be gratefully remembered by' the American
people in connection with this event. Townshend having said that the
Colonies were planted by the care, nourished by the indulgence, and pro-
tected by the arms of England, Barre rose and said : —
" They planted by your care ! No ! your oppressions planted them in America. . . .
They nourished up by your indulgence ! They grew by your neglect of them. . . . They
protected by your arms ! They have nobly taken up arms in your defence. . . . And
believe me, — remember I this day told you so, — the same spirit of freedom which
actuated that people at first will accompany them still." '2
"The sun of liberty is set," wrote Dr. Franklin to Mr. Thompson3 the
very night that the act was passed ; " the-^Americans must light the lamps
of industry and economy."
The news of the passage of the Stamp Act reached Boston in April, and
produced immediate alarm and indignation throughout the province.4
Massachusetts and Virginia — " the head and the heart of the Revolution"
— were the first to denounce the act, and they were soon followed by New
York and Pennsylvania and all the other colonies. The determination was
everywhere expressed that the act should never be executed. Sober men
resisted it, because they saw that it would block the wheels of trade, prevent
exchanges of property, interfere with all industry, and undermine their lib-
erties, which they were not prepared thus to surrender. The case would
have been entirely different if the colonists had levied these stamp duties
1 Isaac Barre was born, 1726, of a Huguenot Barre and his Times," in Macmillaii's Magazine,
family living in Ireland; graduated at Trinity December, 1876. The town of Barre, in Massa-
College, Dublin ; entered the army and served chusetts, which was first named for Hutchinson,
in the French war ; was a warm friend of Wolfe, was afterward named for Barre.
2 [It was in his speech of Feb. 6, 1765,
that Barre had called the opposing party
in the colonies the " Sons of Liberty," and
the name brought over was soon adopted
by them. — Eu.]
and was wounded at Quebec. Through the in- 8 Afterward secretary of the Continental
fluence of Lord Shelburne he entered Parlia- Congress.
ment in 1761, after the fall of Pitt's ministry. 4 [The act was at once issued in a pamphlet
His speeches were spirited, and often aggres- by Edes and Gill, then keeping their press on
sive and harsh. He denounced tyranny and the site of the present Adams Express Corn-
corruption, and usually appealed to the moral pany's office, in Court Street. See Snow's
sympathies of men. He had something of the Boston, p. 258. For the feelings engendered, see
vehement, fiery eloquence of Pitt, and was a Warren's letter, in Frothingham's Life of IVar-
debater to be feared. See article on " Colonel ren ; and John Adams's Works, iii. 465. — ED.]
12
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
upon themselves, through their own assemblies, as the American people
have since freely done to meet the cost of war ; or if they had been allowed
a voice in the government which exercised this
authority.
It was an important principle which they felt
to be at stake, — a principle which had hitherto
been maintained in their relations with the mother
country, and which they could not now see vio-
lated without a distinct and determined resist-
ance.
At this juncture the Legislature of Massachu-
setts, at the suggestion of Otis, proposed the
calling of an American Congress, consisting of
A STAMP.1 committees from each of the thirteen colonies, to
meet at New York in October, "to consult to-
gether," and consider the matter of a "united representation to implore
relief."
While the leaders of the people
were thus taking counsel of one an-
other in solemn deliberations as to
the course to be pursued, the popu-
lar feeling against the act, and the
officers appointed to execute it, ran
high in Boston. An occasion soon
occurred to show how the people
felt upon this subject. The birth-
day of the Prince of Wales, in Au-
gust, was kept as a holiday. Crowds
assembled in the streets, shouting
"Pitt2 and liberty!" Andrew Oli-
ver, brother-in-law of Hutchinson,
having been appointed stamp distrib-
uter, it was proposed that he be
hung in effigy ; and two days later,
August 14, the public saw suspended
from the old elm known as Liberty Tree3 a stuffed figure of the obnoxious
official, together -with a grotesque caricature of Bute.4 This pageant had
S T A M P - O F F I C E,
Lincoln s-Inn, 1765.
TABLE
Ot the. Prices of Parchment and Paper for the Service
of Amtrica.
II by .6, 11 S.i-perwe|
16 — bj 10. it Bigh'-pciK
J* by ? \. al Ten-penee
j\i — by a6. at Tturtero-prncc
FooUCip* Ninc.pener
D -itb P.,r,,rd Noaee. ) u
for Indctturo ] • ,.
Fu!«. Port a< One Shilling
Deoif • T«o Sh.lhnp
Medium ii Three bhilbop
Royal ,t Four Shill.nj,
Super JtojaJ al ia 5hiU«p
Paper for Printing
Bool FoobCip«;6i.-6<M
I'«k«— Pol* Pott u 10 «. Uxh
Sh-.et D«mj »,3,. J
1 [There are a number of these stamps in the
cabinet of the Massachusetts Historical Society;
but our engraving is cut from one lent by Dr.
Samuel A. Green. The impression is on a blue
soft paper, secured by a transverse bit of soft
metal, with another square piece of paper bearing
the royal monogram covering the metal on the
reverse. The accompanying reduced facsimile.
of a schedule of prices for stamps is from a
copy of the Broadside, kindly loaned by Dr.
Green. — Eo.l
- A change had just taken place in the minis-
try, and Pitt had returned to office.
8 [See the engraving in chapter iv. of the
present volume, with note. This fourteenth of
August became a memorable anniversary for the
Sons of Liberty, who eight years later, 1773,
celebrated it by a "festivity " on Roxbury Com-
mon. Drake, Town of Roxbury, p 266. — ED.]
4 A large boot, designed to represent Lord
Bute, with a head and horns upon it. Bute had
been frequently burned in effigy in England in
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION. 13
been prepared by a party of Boston mechanics,1 called Sons of Liberty,
who, prompted by the intense feeling of the hour, devised this method of
expressing it. Great excitement followed, and thousands assembled to view
the spectacle. When the news reached Hutchinson he ordered the sheriff
to remove the effigies ; but nothing was done until evening, when they were
taken down by those with whom the proceedings originated, and carried in
procession, escorted by a great concourse of people, through the street,
into the Old State House, and under the council chamber where Bernard,
Hutchinson, and their advisers were assembled. " Liberty, Property, and
no Stamps ! " was the shout which greeted the ears of those dignitaries.
After repeated huzzas, the populace moved on to Kilby Street, where they
destroyed a frame which the stamp distributer was said to be building for an
office. Taking a portion of it, they proceeded to Fort Hill where Oliver
lived, and burned the effigies in a bonfire before his house. Boston had
the guise of a jack-boot, — a pun upon his name
as John, Earl of Bute. Bonfires of the jack-
kboot were repeated dur-
ing several years both in
rv/' England and America.
^V=^ Mahon (Stanhope), His-
*- tory of England, v. 25.
[One of the most considerate of the English
writers is Grahame, History of the United States,
iv. 183. See Winsor's Handbook, p. 4, for other
references. — ED.]
1 Benjamin Edes, printer; Thomas Crafts,
painter ; John Smith and Stephen Cleverly, braz-
iers ; John Avery, Jr., Thomas Chase, Henry
Bass, and Henry Welles.
2 [Subscription to a paper sent by the Order
in Boston to the Sons of Liberty in New Hamp-
shire, preserved in the Belknap Papers, iii., in the
cabinet of the Massachusetts Historical So-
ciety. A silver punch-bowl, said to have been
used by the Sons of Liberty, bought by William
Mackay after the Revolution, and now owned by
R. C. Mackay, was lately exhibited in the Old
South Loan Collection. — ED.]
14 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
rarely witnessed such a scene. No one knew what would come of it.
Bernard and Hutchinson took refuge in the Castle. The next day a proc-
lamation was issued by the Governor, offering one hundred pounds reward
to be paid upon the conviction of any person concerned in this transac-
tion ; l but no one cared to act as informant against such a strong current of
popular feeling. A few days later, August 26, a mixed crowd collected
near the Old State House, and proceeded to the house of the registrar of
the admiralty, opposite the court house, and burned his public and private
papers. They next plundered the house of the comptroller of customs, in
Hanover Street, and then hurried to the mansion 2 of Lieut. -Governor
Hutchinson, who had incurred the increasing dislike of the people in con-
sequence of his subserviency to the Government, his greed of office,
and his supposed influence in favor of the Stamp Act. Hutchinson and
his family escaped ; but the mob sacked his house and destroyed a large
quantity of plate, pictures, clothing, books, and a valuable collection of
manuscripts relating to the history of the colony.3 This was a disgraceful
proceeding, and would never have taken place but for the frenzy occasioned
by the free use of liquor among the " roughs " who led on the mob.4 A
large public meeting was held the next morning in Faneuil Hall, and resolu-
tions were passed strongly deprecating these lawless proceedings, and call-
ing upon the selectmen to suppress such disorders in the future, and pledging
the support of the inhabitants to preserve the peace.6 That the leading
Patriots had no sympathy whatever with this riotous outbreak is seen also in
a letter written by Samuel Adams to Richard Jackson, the colonial agent in
London, in which he denounced these proceedings as " high-handed out-
rages," of which the inhabitants, " within a few hours after the perpetration
of the act, publicly declared their detestation. All was done the day follow-
ing that could be expected from an orderly town, by whose influence a spirit
1 Drake, History of Boston, p. 696. 1766, relative to the riot of the year before. He
8 In Garden-court Street ; taken down about says he came into Boston about eight o'clock in
1830. See Introduction to Vol. II. p. xi. the evening and overtook a much greater num-
* [Hutchinson, Massachusetts Bay, iii. 124; ber of men than was usual, not in one large
also see Introduction to Vol. I. of this History, body but in little companies of four or five per-
p. xix. and Vol. II. p. 526; and Drake's Land- sons; and that the report of the disturbance
marks, p. 167. — El).] being actually begun had already, at that time,
4 [See contemporary accounts in Josiah reached Roxbury.
Quincy's Diary, Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., April, These papers also contain, as illustrating this
1858; and Joshua Henshaw's letter, in N. E. period: a report on the condition of the North
Hist, and Geneal. Reg., July, 1878, p. 268. Battery in 1765, and estimates for rebuilding it
Among the papers in the Charity Building is in 1/68; a report to the Governor on the popu-
a copy of a deposition tending to show that the lation of Boston in 1765; and depositions as to
authorities had warning of the riot. Ebenezer trouble with British officers in 1768. These
Simpson testified to the selectmen that, Aug. papers should be calendared. — ED.]
26,1765, being at Spectacle Island, he met a 6 [Drake's Boston, p. 701. There are on file in
man-of-war's boat, and one of the men told him the city clerk's office various warning letters ad-
that there was to be a mob in Boston that night, dressed to Benjamin Cudworth, deputy-sheriff,
with intent to pull down the Lieut.-Governor's in a disguised hand ; and also others to Stephen
house, and that their ship's crew was sent for. Greenleaf, sheriff, regarding Cudworth. They
Among these papers is also a copy of a letter were read to the town, and pronounced " abu-
from Warren to the selectmen, dated July 3, sive." — ED.]
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION. 15
was raised to oppose and suppress it. It is possible these matters may be
represented to our disadvantage, and therefore we desire you will take all
possible opportunities to set them in a proper light." 1
Throughout the colonies the same spirit of determined opposition to the
Stamp Act was everywhere seen. Many of the officers appointed to dis-
tribute the stamps were compelled by the " unconquerable rage of the
people " to resign, Oliver among the rest. Towns and legislatures hastened
to make their declaration
of rights, following One
another " like a chime of
bells," and planting them-
selves firmly upon the Brit- -7" "?»
ish Constitution and their
, ... ,. T .,
chartered liberties. In the
rrta/jsitl trfffa&t/, /7M
Massachusetts Assembly a
series of fourteen resolves,
prepared by Samuel <n
Adams, asserting the in-
herent and inalienable '
.. . S<r
rights of the people, were <
particularly considered ^ @
and passed in a full house/
These resolves met w i t h *%*•? *f": ?'— ' "/ '7*f
. r fr1** '• /•* ------- ^*.-
great favor, and were ex- /
tensively published and o
OLIVER S OATH.3
quoted throughout the
country. On October 7 the first American Congress ever held, composed
of delegates from the different colonies, met in New York to take into con-
sideration their rights, privileges, and grievances.4 After mature delibera-
tion in which members from all parts of the country participated, resolutions
were passed embodying the warmest sentiments of loyalty to the King and
respect for " that august body, the Parliament," and setting forth, in plain
but temperate language, the reasonable demands of America, — such as the
right to trial by jury, in opposition to the recent extension of the admiralty
jurisdiction ; and the right to freedom from taxation except through the
colonial assemblies. The Congress also sent an address to the King, a
memorial to the House of Lords, and a petition to the House of Commons.
Before adjourning, this Congress consummated a virtual union by which
the colonies became, as the delegates prophetically expressed it, " a bundle
of sticks which could neither be bent nor broken." 6
1 Wells, Life of Samuel Adams, \. 63. 4 [James Otis here showed his power of
2 Ibid., i. 74-77. leadership. See Tudor's Otis; Bancroft, v. ;
8 [Mr. R. H. Dana, Jr., brought this oath to Flanders's Rutledge ; Ramsey's South Carolina.
the attention of the Massachusetts Historical — ED.|
Society, in June, 1872, their Proceedings of that 6 Bancroft, v. 346. [This congress was a re-
date showing a fac-simile of it ; the present is sponse to the call of Massachusetts. Its pro-
somewhat reduced. — ED.] ceedings are in Almon's Tracts. — ED.]
l6 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
In the mean time there had been further changes in the ministry, result-
ing in the elevation of the Rockingham Whigs to power. This announce-
ment was received with great satisfaction, as it was understood that the
new cabinet was more friendly to American claims. That this opinion
had some foundation appears in the orders sent to the royal governors and
to General Gage, commander of the forces at New York, only one week
before the Stamp Act was to take effect, recommending " the utmost pru-
dence and lenity," and advising a resort to " persuasive methods." 1
When the first of November came, the people were prepared to prevent
the execution of the odious act by refusing as one man to buy or use the
stamps. In Boston they tolled the bells of the churches and fired min-
ute-guns. Vessels in the harbor hung their flags at half-mast. " Liberty,
Property, and no Stamps ! " was the watchword passing everywhere from
mouth to mouth. Effigies of Grenville and Huske 2 were suspended from
Liberty Tree early in the morning, and in the afternoon were taken down
and carried to the court house and to the North End, and then back to
the gallows on the Neck, where they were hung for a short time, and
afterward were cut down and torn to pieces. The crowd then quietly dis-
persed, and the night was entirely free from disturbance.3
As the Stamp Act had become a law, only stamped paper was legal ;
and as the people were firm in their determination not to use it, they were
obliged to suspend business. The provincial courts were closed ; mar-
riages ceased ; vessels were unmoored ; and all commercial operations were
paralyzed. Merchants in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston agreed not
to import from England certain enumerated articles ; and in general the
people ceased using foreign luxuries, and turned their attention to domestic
products. Frugality was the self-imposed order of the day, and it was not
without its results.
In December a town-meeting was held in Boston, and a committee ap-
pointed to request of the Governor and Council that the courts might be
opened.4 At the opening of the Legislature in January, the House, in re-
plying to the message of the Governor, demanded relief from the existing
grievances. "The custom-houses are now open," they said, "and the
people are permitted to transact their usual business. The courts of justice
also must be opened, — opened immediately; and the law, the great rule of
right, duly executed in every county in this province. This stopping of the
course of justice is a grievance which this Court must inquire into. Justice
must be fully administered without delay."5 The Council laid this address
upon the table ; but, in an informal way, gave assurances that the courts
1 Massachusetts Gazette, Feb. 6, 1766; Debates Adams, Thomas dishing, John Hancock, Ben-
in Parliament, iv. 302-306. jamin Kent, Samuel Sewall, John Rowe, Joshua
2 John Huske, a native of Portsmouth, N. H., Henshaw, and Arnold Welles; and they were
who had removed to England and obtained a authorized to employ Gridley, Otis, and John
seat in the House of Commons, and taken a Adams as counsel. Diary of John Adams in
prominent part in favor of the Stamp Act. Works, ii. 157, ft seq. ; Barry, p. 307.
8 Drake, Boston, pp. 707, 708. 5 Massachusetts Gazette, Jan. 23, 1/66; Hutch-
4 This committee was composed of Samuel inson, iii. 143.
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION. 17
would be opened at the next term, and business allowed to be transacted
as usual.
This bold attitude of the American people caused no little annoyance and
anxiety to the Administration. The case was, moreover, complicated by the
change of sentiment in England regarding the justice of the policy initiated
by Grenville. The English people were not prepared to repudiate their
own love of liberty, nor to force upon any of their fellow-subjects the meas-
ures of absolutism against which their own glorious history had been a
standing protest. Especially were the commercial and manufacturing
towns in England dissatisfied with this policy ; for it had reacted most un-
favorably upon them, interrupting trade, injuring credit, and creating much
suffering and discontent. We are not surprised, therefore, to find that
both sympathy and interest prompted the nation to urge the repeal of an
act which was as hostile to their own welfare as to that of America.
Upon the reassembling of Parliament in January, 1766, the King, in his
speech, stated that "matters of importance had happened in America, and
orders had been issued for the support of lawful authority." 1 The Lords
responded, as usual, in terms of deference and co-operation ; but in the
House of Commons, which was unusually full, a debate ensued such as
perhaps had never been heard before within its walls. The venerable Pitt,
after an absence of more than a year, had arrived in town that morning.
Though in a very feeble condition, and suffering from the gout, he took his
seat while the debate was in progress, and soon after rose and made his ever
memorable speech, — a masterpiece of fiery eloquence in which he de-
nounced the Stamp Act, and demanded its immediate repeal. He said : —
" It is no\v an act that has passed. I would speak with decency of every act
of this House, but I must beg indulgence to speak of it with freedom. The subject
of this debate is of greater importance than any that has ever engaged the atten-
tion of this House, — that subject only excepted when, nearly a century ago, it was a
question whether you yourselves were to be bond or free. . . . On a question that
may mortally wound the freedom of three millions of virtuous and brave subjects
beyond the Atlantic Ocean, I cannot be silent."
He then proceeded to argue that as the colonies had never been really or
virtually represented in Parliament, they could not be held " legally or con-
stitutionally or reasonably subject to obedience to any money bill " of the
kingdom. In replying to Grenville he said, a little later on : " The gentle-
man tells us America is obstinate ; America is almost in open rebellion ! I
rejoice that America has resisted." Upon this the whole House started as if
touched by an electric shock. Near the conclusion of his speech he
said : —
" In a good cause, on a sound bottom, the force of this country can crush Amer-
ica to atoms. . . . But in such a cause your success would be hazardous. America,
if she fell, would fall like the strong man ; she would embrace the pillars of the State,
1 Massachusetts Gazette, March 27, 1766.
VOL. Ill — 3.
A. C. C. H. LIBRARY
SOUTH BOSTON, MASS.
l8 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
and pull down the Constitution along with her. . . . Upon the whole I will beg leave
to tell the House what is really my opinion. It is that the Stamp Act be repealed,
absolutely, totally, and immediately ; that the reason for the repeal be assigned, be-
cause it was founded on an erroneous principle. . . ." 1
Thus spoke the Great Commoner ; with what effect upon the minds of
the House appeared in the current of sympathy which at once turned toward
him, and which, a little later on, expressed itself in the famous repeal.
Toward the last of the month the House resolved itself into a committee
of the whole to consider petitions for the repeal, which had been presented
by the merchants of London, Birmingham, Coventry, Bristol, Liverpool,
Manchester, and other towns. The sittings of this committee were con-
tinued more than two weeks. Among others, Benjamin Franklin, then a
colonial agent in London, was summoned to the bar of the House; and his
minute examination concerning the feelings and wishes of the Colonies con-
tributed more to his personal fame than any previous occurrence in his life ;
and it is doubtful whether he ever wrote or said anything abler than his ad-
mirable replies on this occasion. In all that he said he was prompt and
pertinent, accurate and concise, wise and true. The House of Commons
listened to him for ten days, and must have been as much astonished at his
answers as the whole American people were delighted with them.2
The committee who had listened to this remarkable examination soon
" reported that it was their opinion that the House be moved that leave be
given to bring in a bill to repeal the Stamp Act."
The crisis came on the night of February 21, when every seat was occu-
pied, and the galleries, lobbies, and stairs were crowded with eager specta-
tors. The debate was opened by Conway, one of the ministry, and a warm
friend of the Colonies. He was followed by Jenkinson, Burke, Grenville,
1 Bancroft, v. 382-396; Debates in Parliament, " Q. — And what is their temper now ?
iv. 285-298. "A. — Oh, very much altered.
2 As a specimen of Franklin's shrewdness, " Q. — Did you ever hear the authority of
take a few of his answers : — Parliament to make laws for America questioned
" Question. — Do you think it right that Amer- till lately ?
ica should be protected by this country and pay "A. — The authority of Parliament was al-
no part of the expense ? lowed to be valid in all laws except such as
" Answer. — That is not the case. The Col- should lay internal taxes. It was never disputed
onies raised, clothed, and paid during the last in laying duties to regulate commerce.
war near twenty-five thousand men, and spent " Q. — If the Stamp Act should be repealed,
many millions. and the Crown should make a requisition to the
" Q. — Were you not reimbursed by Parlia- Colonies for a sum ot money, would they grant
ment ? it ?
"A. — . . . Only a very small part of what " A. — I believe they would.
we spent. " Q. — What used to be the pride of the
" Q. — Do you think the people of America Americans ?
would submit to pay the stamp duty if it was "A. — To indulge in the fashions and manu-
moderated ? factures of Great Britain.
" A. — No, never, unless compelled by force " Q. — What is now their pride ?
of arms. " A, — To wear their old clothes over again
" Q. — What was the temper of America to- till they can make new ones." — Bigelow, Life of
ward Great Britain before the year 1763? Franklin, 5.467-510; Sparks, Franklin, pp. 298-
" A. — The best in the world. . . . 300.
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION. 19
and Pitt. About half-past one in the morning the division took place, and
Conway's bill of repeal was carried triumphantly by a vote of two hundred
and seventy-five against one hundred and sixty-seven. Pitt and Conway
were tumultuously applauded as they left the House, while Grenville l was
greeted with hisses. The final debate on the repeal was still more decisive.
In the Lords the bill was carried by a majority of thirty-four; and on the
day following, March 17, it received the reluctant sanction of the King, who
spoke of it as " a fatal compliance." London was delighted with the result;
the church bells were rung merrily ; ships displayed their colors ; the
streets were illuminated ; and a public dinner was given by the friends of
America. In Boston the news was received with every conceivable demon-
stration of joy.2 Liberty Tree was decked with lanterns ; bells and guns,
flags and music, illuminations and fireworks, proclaimed in unmistakable
language the gratitude and loyalty of the people.3 New York voted statues
to the King and to Pitt. Virginia voted a statue to the King, and South
Carolina one to Pitt. Maryland passed a similar vote, and ordered a por-
trait of Lord Camden. Boston had previously voted letters of thanks to
Barre and Conway, and requested their portraits for Faneuil Hall.4
In the outburst of joy at the repeal, the public mind had not considered the
full meaning of the accompanying declaratory act5 claiming for Parliament
absolute power to bind America " in all cases whatsoever." This act was a
fatal mistake, and a wanton blow at the well known American principle of
local self-government ; for it soon became evident that the object of Parlia-
ment was, after all, political subjugation. This was precisely the point upon
which the colonists had taken their stand. It was not the mere pecuniary
loss involved in the enforcement of the stamp tax that they were consider-
ing,— they were abundantly able to pay that, — but it was the underlying
question of right ; and if that were not conceded, it would soon be found
1 Walpole, ii. 299, 300. Stamp Act-and the revolutionary proceedings in
2 [Speaker Gushing had enclosed, June Boston, is printed in Mass. f/ist. Coll. iv. 367.
22, 1766, a letter of thanks to the king, and the There is in the collection of Charles P. Green-
fac-simile on the next page is from Otis's letter ough, Esq., of Boston (whose treasures have
to Gushing on this vote of thanks. The original been very generously put at my disposal, and
is in the Lee papers in the University of Vir- from which I have often drawn in this and the
ginia Library. The principal demonstrations final volume), a letter from London merchants to
took place May 19, 1766. An obelisk was erect- those of Boston, offering congratulations and
ed on the Common and decked with lanterns ; encouragement on account of the repeal of the
Hancock illuminated his house and discharged Stamp Act. A similar letter from business cor-
fireworks in front of it from a stage ; and these respondents was contributed to the Mass. Hist.
were responded to by similar demonstrations by Soc. Proc., March, 1876, p. 260, by Mr. T. C.
the Sons of Liberty at the workhouse. Views Amory. — ED.]
of the obelisk were engraved by Revere, and 4 This was done at a town-meeting held Sept.
one of them is given much reduced in Drake's 18, 1765. The portraits arrived in due time, and
Landmarks, p. 359. The earliest rumor of a re- were hung in Faneuil Hall ; but what became of
peal had appeared in the Massachusetts Gazette, them afterward is not known. They are sup-
April 3, 1766, having come from Philadelphia posed to have been removed when the British
two days before. See Thornton's Pulpit of the army had control of the town. Drake, pp. 703,
Revolution, p. 120, where is also Chauncy's dis- 704. [See supplementary notes to the next
course on the repeal. — ED.] chapter in this volume. — ED.]
3 [A paper by General Gage concerning the 6 6 George III. c. xii.
20
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
r
that the repeal was only a nominal and a temporary relief. Leading Pa-
triots saw in this much to excite alarm ; but for the time being, and for the
sake of harmony,
they were willing to
remain silent.1
No well defined
sentiment of union
had as yet taken
possession of the
public mind. Not
until it became evi-
dent that there was
no other way of
maintaining their
freedom, did any of
the Colonies think
of measures tend-
ing to united action.
One of the first to
anticipate this ne-
cessity was Jona-
than Mayhew, the
patriotic pastor of
the West Church in
Irsl \ Boston, who, writ-
» ' ing to his friend Otis
one Lord's Day
morning in June,
1 766, said : —
" You have heard
of the communion of
churches ; while I was
thinking of this in my
bed, the great use and
importance of a com-
munion of colonies
appeared to me in a
strong light. Would
it not be decorous for
our Assembly to send
circulars to all the rest,
expressing a desire to
cement union among
ourselves? A good
1 Wells, Life of Samuel Adams, \. 116-118.
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION. 21
foundation for this has been laid by the Congress at New York ; never losing sight of
it may be the means of perpetuating our liberties." l
The possibility of such a union seems to have occurred to at least one
English statesman at this time ; for in the same month in which the above
words were penned we find Charles Townshend boldly advocating in the
House of Commons a radical measure aimed not only to secure a revenue,
but also to prevent any such accessions of strength as the Colonies might
gain by combined action. No man in the ministry was better informed
than Townshend upon American affairs. He knew the resources of the
people ; he anticipated their rapid development ; and the scheme which he
now promulgated was expressly devised to make the whole colonial power
tributary to the Crown. Therefore he favored the abolition of all their
charters ; and the substitution of a government in which the local assem-
blies should be restrained, a general congress forbidden, and the royal gov-
ernors, judges, and attorneys become independent of the people.2
Townshend soon had further opportunities for prosecuting his scheme ;
for in the reconstruction of the ministry, which took place in the month of
July, he was selected as chancellor of the exchequer by the Duke of
Grafton, in the strangely incongruous ad-
ministration of Pitt, now created Earl of
Chatham. Townshend was the leading spirit
in the new government, and availed him-
self of every opportunity to urge the ad- -/ ,,
vantages of an American civil list. He ^/ ^
had been, with Grenvilie, a firm advocate of the Stamp Act. He ridiculed
the distinction between internal and external taxes. He insisted that
America should share the heavy financial burden of England.3 In the ab-
sence of Chatham, who was most of the time suffering from feeble health,
he dictated to the ministry its colonial policy. " I would govern the
Americans," said he, " as subjects of Great Britain ; I would restrain their
trade and their manufactures as subordinate to the mother country.
These, our children, must not make themselves our allies in time of war
and our rivals in peace." With such purposes the resolute and reckless
chancellor pushed his way into favor with Parliament, ignoring the scruples
of his associates and defying the opposition of his enemies, until he suc-
ceeded in carrying the famous Townshend revenue bill through both
Houses, and obtained the royal assent. These acts levied a duty on glass,
paper, painters' colors, and tea; established a board of customs at Boston
for collecting the whole American revenue ; and legalized writs of assistance.
The revenue was to be at the disposition of the King, and was to be chiefly
employed in the support of officers of the Crown, to secure their indepen-
dence of the local legislatures. " The die is thrown ! " cried the Patriots of
1 Bradford, Life of Mayhew, 428, 429. [See 2 Bancroft, vi. 9, 10.
also Mr. Goddard's chapter in the present vol- 8 Fitzmaurice, Life of William, Earl of Slul-
ume. — ED.] burne, iii. 37 et seq.
22 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Boston when they received the news of the passage of Townshend's bill ;
"the Rubicon is passed. . . . We will form an immediate and universal
combination to eat nothing, drink nothing, wear nothing, imported from
Great Britain. . . . Our strength consists in union ; let us above all be of
one heart and one mind ; let us call on our sister Colonies to join with us
in asserting our rights." J Governor Bernard having refused a petition to
summon the Legislature, a town-meeting was called Oct. 28, 1767; and the
inhabitants voted neither to import nor to use certain articles of British
production. A committee was appointed to obtain subscribers to such an
agreement, and the resolutions were extensively circulated throughout the
country. The newspapers took up the subject with great warmth, and
aided in a very important degree the formation of public opinion at this
critical period. Able writers contributed timely letters, among which those
written by a " Farmer of Pennsylvania" 2 attained a very wide celebrity for
their calm and vigorous treatment of the great constitutional questions of
the day. The communications sent by the Massachusetts Legislature in
January, 1768, to members of the Cabinet and to the provincial agent in
London, contain the full argument respecting the claims of the colonies.
These papers, as well as the petition to the king which accompanied them,
and the circular-letter to the sister colonies which was issued shortly after,
were all drafted by Samuel Adams, whose masterly grasp of the great
political issues of the time attracted universal attention and gained a host
of friends to the cause of liberty. The circular-letter just alluded to met
with a very gratifying response from the other assemblies, and was a most
efficient instrument in securing unity of purpose among the leaders of the
people in all parts of the country. The publication of these important
documents produced such an effect that the board of commissioners of the
revenue immediately prepared a memorial to be sent to England, express-
ing apprehensions for their personal safety ; complaining of the unwarrant-
able license of the American press,3 of the non-importation league, and of
New England town-meetings ; and asking for assistance in the execution of
the revenue laws ; adding, that there was not a ship of war in the province,
nor a company of soldiers nearer than New York.
This memorial, together with the reports of Bernard and Hutchinson,
soon drew from Hillsborough, secretary for the colonies, an order sent to
all the governors, bidding them use their influence with the assemblies to
1 Barry, ii. 339. 'on> tne approbation of her inhabitants inestimable. . . .
2 John Dickinson, afterward a member of the Love of my country engaged me in that attempt to vindi-
*./?.. , ^ r-r- i r cate ller rights and assert her interests, which vour gener-
first Continental Congress. [To a letter of grati- osity has thoiig|u proper ^ high]y toapplaud / Nt.ver
tude from Boston Dickinson returned a reply, until my heart becomes insensible of a!l worldly thin.!;-, will
which is preserved among the Charity Building 't become insensible of the unspeakable obligations which,
papers, and is addressed " To the very respect- as an African. I owe to the inhabitants of the Province of
i. • i ... r .L r T> u j Massachusetts Bay, for the vigilance with which thev have
able inhabitants of the town of Boston ; and
watched over, and the magnanimity with which they have
expresses the " reverential gratitude " for the maintained, the liberties of the British colonies on this
late letter received by him: — continent. A FARMER.
PENNSYLVANIA, April n, 1768.
The rank of the Town of Boston, the wisdom of her 8 ISee Mr- Goddard's chapter in this vol-
counsels, and the spirit of her conduct render, in my opin- time. — ED.]
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION. 23
take no notice of the " seditious " circular-letter, which was described as
" of a most dangerous and factious tendency," calculated to inflame the
minds of the people, to promote an illegal combination, and to excite
open opposition to the authority of Parliament. The House of Represen-
tatives of Massachusetts was required, in His Majesty's name, to rescind
their resolutions, and to " declare their disapprobation of the rash and
hasty proceeding." In case of their refusal to comply, it was the King's
pleasure that the Governor should immediately dissolve them.1 At the
same time General Gage, Commander-in-chief of the royal forces in Amer-
ica, was ordered to " strengthen the hands of the Government in the
Province of the Massachusetts Bay, enforce a due obedience of the laws,
and protect and support the civil magistrates and the officers of the Crown
in the execution of their duty." 2 Further peremptory orders were sent to
Gage, in June, to station a regiment permanently in Boston ; and the ad-
miralty was directed to send one frigate, two sloops, and two cutters to
remain in Boston harbor; and Castle William was to be put in readiness
for immediate use.3
For about a month previous to this the ship of war " Romney " had
lain at anchor in the harbor, and her commander had occasioned much
trouble by violently impressing New England seamen, and refusing to give
them up, even when substitutes were offered. The excitement arising from
this was increased by the seizure of the sloop " Liberty" (June 10, 1768),
belonging to John Hancock, for an alleged false entry. The popular out-
break in consequence of these proceedings, though resulting in no serious
injury, was magnified by the commissioners into an insurrection, and made
the occasion of still further appeals for personal protection, by force of
arms, in the discharge of their duties.4 The citizens, in response to a call
for a legal town-meeting to consider the matter, gathered in such numbers
at Faneuil Hall that they were obliged to adjourn to the Old South Meet-
ing-house, where, with Otis as moderator, an address to the Governor was
unanimously voted, and a committee of twenty-one appointed to present it.5
At an adjourned meeting the next day (June 15), Otis strongly recom-
1 Hillsborough to Bernard, April 22, 1768. found out to be not an easy person to deal with.
2 Hillsborough to Gage, April 23, 1768. The papers relating to these affairs of his are
8 [The annexed heliotypes follow originals preserved among the Lee papers, in the libraries
made by the British engineers not far from this of Harvard College and the University of Vir-
time, and issued with DesBarres's series of coast ginia. Malcolm died shortly after, and they
charts. One represents the harbor from Fort show his gravestone to-day in the Copp's Hill
Hill; the other is a view of the town from burying-ground, with its praises of him as "an
Willis's Creek, in East Cambridge. — ED.] enemy of oppression and one of the foremost in
4 [There is an account of this seizure in opposing the revenue acts on America ; " and
Drake's Boston, p. 736. See John Adams's upon it are seen the bullet marks of the British
Works, ii. 215. A prominent leader in the mob soldiers, who used it as a target during the siege,
which endeavored to prevent the sloop from Shurtleff's Description of Boston, p. 209. — En.)
being towed under the guns of the " Rom- 5 [This presentation took place at the Gov-
ney " was a Boston tradesman, Daniel Malcolm, ernor's house, on Jamaica Pond, where they were
who had a year or two before some pretty sharp treated with wine, " which highly pleased |Ber-
altcrcations with the revenue officers, accom- nard says] that part of them which had not been
paniecl with vigorous action, so that he was used to an interview with me." — ED.]
24 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
mended peaceable and orderly methods of obtaining redress, and depre-
cated in the strongest terms all acts of mob violence, hoping that the
cause of their grievances would yet be removed; and added: " If not, and
we are called on to defend our liberties and privileges, I hope and believe
we shall, one and all, resist even unto blood ; but I pray God Almighty
that this may never so happen." 1
The Governor disclaimed having any responsibility for the occurrences
complained of, but promised to stop impressments. Meanwhile, Hills-
borough's instructions to Massachusetts to rescind her non-importation res-
olutions arrived, and were communicated in a message from Bernard to the
General Court. Otis took the floor in reply, and spoke for two hours with
even more than his accustomed vehemence, showing that it would be im-
possible for this House to rescind a measure of the previous House which
had been already executed. He spoke respectfully of the King, but ar-
raigned the course of the ministry and the legislation of Parliament with
great severity. The subject occupied the attention of the House for nine
days, under the guidance of a special committee.2 The Governor com-
municated the threat to dissolve the Assembly in case they refused to
comply, and pressed them for a decision. A recess was requested for
consultation, but it was refused. The question was then put, in secret
session, whether the House would rescind the resolution "which gave birth
to their circular-letter to the several houses of representatives and burgesses
of the other colonies." The vote was taken viva voce, and stood ninety-
two nays against seventeen yeas. The answer to the Governor, informing
him of their decision, stated that they regarded the circular-letter mod-
erate and innocent, respectful to Parliament, and dutiful to the King; that
they entertained sentiments of reverence and affection for both ; that
they, as subjects, claimed the right of petition jointly and severally, of
correspondence, and of a free assembly; and that the charge of treason
was unjustly brought against them. The Governor, following his instruc-
tions, thereupon closed the session, and the next day dissolved the General
Court by proclamation. Thus was taken away the right of free discussion
vested in the time-honored representative Assembly of Massachusetts. It
was an act of arbitrary power, destined to recoil heavily upon those who
enforced it. The other Colonies felt that their liberties were invaded as
well, and sent the most cordial assurances of their sympathy and support.
In this we can clearly see a new impulse given to the sentiment of union as
a necessary means of mutual security. As dangers thickened, the people
stood more and more together, determined to assert and defend their con-
stitutional rights against the unlawful aggressions of imperial power. It
soon became evident that the Administration had resolved upon employ-
ing the strong arm of military power to sustain its authority in the " re-
1 Boston News-Letter, June 16 and 23, 1768. John Hancock, Colonel Otis, Colonel Bowers,
2 This committee consisted of Thomas Cush- Mr. Spooner, Colonel Warren, and Mr. Saun-
ing (speaker), Mr. Otis, Samuel Adams (clerk), ders.
.
1 V "I '^/.'T/ //A- // •/{"</' y f ^'),'.i/,'/t' A//// /W/
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION. 25
fractory" Province. Preparations were making to transfer two regi-
ments from Halifax to Boston, and it was soon after announced that two
others were expected from Ireland. This naturally led to a great excite-
ment, and a town-meeting was called to consider what " wise, constitutional,
loyal, and salutary measures " could be taken in the emergency. The
Governor was requested to give information in regard to the troops, and
to convene the Legislature. Upon his refusal, a convention of all the
towns was proposed, to be held in Faneuil Hall within two weeks; and it
was recommended that all the inhabitants should be provided with fire-
arms and suitable ammunition ; 1 and a day of fasting and prayer was ap-
pointed and observed in accordance with the New England custom.
The convention met on September 22, and was composed of representa-
tives of nearly every settlement in the province. The same officers were
chosen for chairman and clerk that filled those positions in the late Assembly,
and the Governor was petitioned to " cause an assembly to be immediately
convened." He refused to receive the petition, and denounced the con-
vention as illegal, advising the members to separate at once, or they would
" repent their rashness." The convention did not follow his advice, but
continued in session six days, and reaffirmed the former declarations made
by the General Court concerning their charter rights. The proceedings
throughout were calm and moderate. A respectful petition to the king
was prepared, in which they wholly disclaimed the charge of a rebellious
spirit. An address to the people was also adopted, recommending sub-
mission to legal authority and abstinence from all participation in acts of
violence. This was the first of those independent popular assemblies which
soon began to exercise political power in the colonies. The Patriot lead-
ers were wise and sagacious men, who, in asserting their rights, knew well
how to keep the law on their side. When the proceedings of this conven-
tion were submitted to the attorney-general, and to the solicitor-general of
England, to ascertain if they were treasonable, both declared that they
were not. " Look into the papers," said De Grey, " and see how well
these Americans are versed in the crown law. I doubt whether they have
been guilty of an overt act of treason, but I am sure they have come within
a hair's breadth of it." z
No sooner had the convention adjourned than the fleet arrived in the
harbor, bringing two regiments, with artillery, under command of Colonel
Dalrymple.3 In response to a requisition for quarters in the town the
council, and afterwards the selectmen, adhering to the law, declined to act,
stating that the barracks at Castle Island were provided for that purpose.
1 Hutchinson, iii. app. I.. ; Boston News-Letter, came near being roused in this way. Governor
postscript, Sept. 22, 1768. Bernard was informed of the movement, and
2 Bancroft, vi. 206. sent Sheriff Greenleaf to remove the combus-
8 [The Patriots had prepared to fire the bea- tibles. Frothingham, Life of Warren, p. 80. An
con above the town, and had placed a broken excellent likeness of Greenleaf, by Smibert, is
tar-barrel in the skillet. This was perhaps the owned by Mrs. S. G. Bulfinch, of Cambridge,
only time in which the surrounding country — Eo.J
VOL. III. — 4.
26
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
On the first of October eight armed ships, with their tenders, approached
the wharves, with cannon loaded and springs on the cables. The Four-
teenth and Twenty-ninth regiments, and a part of the Fifty-ninth, with two
field-pieces, landed at Long Wharf and marched with fixed bayonets, drums
beating and colors flying, through the streets as far as the Common, where
a portion of the troops encamped, the remainder being allowed by the
Sons of Liberty, later in the day, to occupy Faneuil Hall.1 We can easily
imagine the surprise and indignation with which the people of Boston be-
held this demonstration of authority. They keenly felt the insult offered
to their loyalty, and though no open resistance was made it was soon appa-
rent that such a state of things could only engender mutual hostility which
might at any time break out in a disturbance of the peace. The odious terms
" rebel " and " tyrant " were now spoken with increasing bitterness, and the
lines were drawn more sharply than ever between Tory and Patriot. While
Boston was thus in the hands of a hireling soldiery, her people waited
anxiously for intelligence from abroad, hoping that their communications
to the King and Parliament would meet with a favorable consideration ; 2
but again they were doomed to disappointment. Changes had taken place
in the cabinet, but there was no change in the purpose of the Government.
Chatham had resigned ; Shelburne was removed ; and Lord North 3 had
taken the place left vacant by the death of Townshend.4 At the opening
of Parliament, the King referred to Boston as being " in a state of diso-
bedience to all law and government," and declared it to be his purpose
" to defeat the mischievous designs of those turbulent and seditious per-
sons " who had " but too successfully deluded numbers" of his subjects in
America. An animated debate followed, in which it was said that the
difficulties in governing Massachusetts were " insurmountable, unless its
charter and laws should be so changed as to give the King the appoint-
ment of the council, and to the sheriffs the sole power of returning juries."
1 [Paul Revere's plate, showing this landing,
is given in Vol. II. p. 532. Mrs. Turrell says in
her recollections, in Ar. E. Hist, and Geneal.
Reg., April, 1860, p. 150: "When the British
troops came here they were lodged in a sugar-
house in Brattle Square, which belonged to Mrs.
Inman. I think there were three thousand of
them. The officers lodged in the house of
Madam Apthorp, in which I now live." But
this paper is somewhat confused in other res-
pects, if not in this. See John Adams's Works,
ii. 213. — ED.]
2 [There is in the Charity Building collection
a draft of a letter from the selectmen, Nov. 12,
1768, to Pownall and De Berdt, as endorsed by
William Cooper, "on the present deplorable
condition of this town, . . . changed from a free
city to an almost garrison state." — ED.]
8 Lord North, eldest son of the Earl of Guil-
ford, entered the cabinet at the age of thirty-five,
and remained fifteen years, during the most crit-
ical period in English history. He was always a
favorite of the king, and a recognized leader in
the ministry. He never understood the charac-
ter or claims of the American people, and conse-
quently favored a mistaken policy towards them,
to which he adhered throughout the war.
4 At the early age of forty-one. Bancroft, in
summing up the character of Townshend, aptly
calls him "the most celebrated statesman who
has left nothing but errors to account for his
fame," vi. 99.
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION. 27
Burke defended the Colonies, and denounced as illegal and unconstitutional
the order requiring the General Court to rescind their resolutions. Bar-
rington accused the Americans as traitors, adding, " The troops have been
sent thither to bring rioters to justice." Lord North defended the recent
act of Parliament, and said that he would never think of repealing it until
he should see America " prostrate at his feet."
" Depend upon it," said Hillsborough to one of the colonial agents,
" Parliament will not suffer their authority to be trampled upon. We wish
to avoid severities towards you ; but if you refuse obedience to our laws
the whole fleet and army of England shall enforce it."
The indictment against the Colonies was presented in sixty papers laid
before Parliament. Both Houses declared that the proceedings of the Mas-
sachusetts Assembly, in opposing the revenue acts, were unconstitutional ;
that the circular-letter tended to create unlawful combinations ; and that the
Boston convention was proof of a design of setting up an independent au-
thority ; and both Houses proposed, under the provisions of an obsolete act
of Henry VIII., to transport to England " for trial and condign punishment,"
in direct violation of trial by jury, the chief authors and instigators of the
late disorders. In the famous debate of this session, Burke, Barre, Pow-
nall, and Dowdeswell spoke eloquently in behalf of the Colonies ; but the
address and resolutions were carried by a large majority.
After being nearly a year without a Legislature, Massachusetts was again
permitted by the Governor, in the name of the King, to send its representa-
tives to a General Court convened, according to the charter, on the last Wed-
nesday in May, 1769. The first business was a protest against the breach
of their privileges, and a petition to the Governor to have the troops re-
moved from Boston, as it was inconsistent with the Assembly's dignity and
freedom to deliberate in the presence of an armed force. They declined to
enter upon the business of supplies, or anything else except the considera-
tion of their grievances. The Governor refused to grant their petition, alleg-
ing want of authority over His Majesty's forces ; and after vainly waiting
a fortnight for them to vote him his year's salary, he adjourned the Assem-
bly to Cambridge, and informed them that he was about to repair to Eng-
land to lay the state of the province before His Majesty. The Assembly
thereupon passed a unanimous vote, one hundred and nine members being
present, to petition the king " to remove Sir Francis Bernard l forever from
this government."2 It has always been believed that much of the difficulty
between Massachusetts and Great Britain was owing to the total unfitness
of Bernard for the important position which he held during nine eventful
years. His frequent misrepresentations of the spirit and conduct of the
colonists are a matter of record. He left no friends behind him. Indeed his
departure was an occasion of public rejoicing. " The bells were rung, guns
1 Bernard had recently received a baronetcy, fidence of any order or rank of men within his
"a most ill-timed favor, when he had so griev- province." Mahon, History of England, v. 241.
ously failed in gaining the affections or the con- 2 y<w/>-«<z/, House of Representatives, 1769, 36.
28 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
were fired from Mr. Hancock's wharf, Liberty Tree was covered with flags,
and in the evening a great bonfire was made upon Fort Hill." l
Lieut.-Governor Hutchinson succeeded to the chair as chief magistrate.
He was a native of Boston, was acquainted with public affairs, and for many
years had held more important offices than any other man in the province ;
but his career had been so often marred by duplicity and avarice that very
little hope was cherished of any improvement in the administration. His
failure was in part owing to the difficulty he found in trying to serve both
England and America, with a decided preference in favor of the former, at
a time when the opinions and interests of the two countries were rapidly be-
coming distinct. He was not the man for the times.2 When the Massachu-
setts Assembly, sitting at Cambridge, had refused to grant the supplies de-
manded by Bernard, that functionary prorogued it to the tenth of January.
When that date arrived, Hutchinson, under arbitrary instructions from Hills-
borough, prorogued it still further to the middle of March.
Meanwhile the non-importation agreements had become so general as to
produce a visible effect upon British commerce. Exports from England to
America had fallen off seriously, and English merchants were really injured
more than the Americans by the narrow revenue policy of the Government.
Lord North, perceiving this, caused a circular-letter to be sent to the Colonies,
proposing to favor the removal of duties from all articles, except tea, enumer-
ated in the late act. This was evidently a measure of expediency, dictated
wholly by self-interest; and as by retaining the duty on tea there was no
surrender of the obnoxious claim contained in the declaratory act, it did not
materially affect the situation in America.
Boston at this time, in a legal town-meeting,3 issued an Appeal to the
World, prepared by Samuel Adams, vindicating itself from the aspersions
of Bernard, Gage, Hood, and the revenue officers. The Appeal says : -
" We should yet be glad that the ancient and happy union between Great Britain
and this country might be restored. The taking off the duties on paper, glass, and
1 Hutchinson, iii. 254. [See Dr. Ellis's esti- appear as ridiculous as possible, which generally
mate of Bernard in Vol. II. of this History, p. 65. occasioned a grin of applause." Not long before
The Governor left his estate on Jamaica Pond, this, the Sons of Liberty had dined together, Aug.
July 31, 1769, and embarked the next day from 14, 1769, at Dorchester, and there is a list of their
the Castle. Lady Bernard did not leave the es- names in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., August, 1869.
tate till December, 1770. — ED.] John Adams's Works, ii. 218.
2 Hutchinson 's History of Massachusetts Bay William Cooper, who figures largely in the
deserves honorable mention as a work of rare town's transactions at this time, was a son of the
ability and candor, for which students of our Rev. William Cooper, D.D., of the Brattle Street
history will always be grateful. [See Dr. Ellis's Church; was born Oct. i, 1721, and died Nov.
estimate of Hutchinson's administration in Vol. 28, 1809. He was first chosen town clerk in 1761,
II. p 69 ; and that by Frothingham in his Warren, and held the office till his death. In 1755-56 he
p. 107. — ED.] was a representative to the General Court. From
8 [Cooper, the town clerk, issued the warrant 1759 to 1800 he was Register of Probate. He is
for this meeting, Sept. 28, 1769, and the meeting buried in the Granary Burial-ground. He lived
was held, October 4. A contemporary account on Hanover Street. He married, April 26, 1745,
(in the Chalmers papers, ii. 37, in the Sparks Katharine, daughter of Jacob Wendell, and had
MSS. in Harvard College Library) says that sixteen children. See notices in Boston Patriot,
Cooper read the letters to the meeting, "and Dec. 6, 1809, and Evening Transcript, July 7,
took a good deal of 'pains to make the Governor iSSi. — ED.]
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION.
29
painters' colors, upon commercial principles only, will not give satisfaction. Discon-
tent runs through the continent upon much higher principles. Our rights are invaded
by the revenue acts ; therefore, until they are ALL repealed, . . . and the troops recalled,
. . . the cause of our just complaints cannot be removed."
^/
SIGNATURES OF THE TOWN S COMMITTEE.
Society in Boston was thoroughly moved by the prevailing sentiment.2
Three hundred wives subscribed to a league agreeing not to drink any tea
1 [These autographs are from a letter sent by
the town to Dennis De Berdt, the colony's agent
in England, in order that through him "our
friends in Parliament maybe acquainted with the
difficulties the trade labors by means of those
acts." It recapitulates how the merchants and
traders of Boston had entered into an agreement,
August, 1768, not to import goods from Great
Britain after Jan. i, 1770, and had made a further
agreement, Oct. 17, 1769, that no goods should
be sent from here till the revenue acts be re-
pealed; and how the other colonies had not
gone to the same extent ; and so they informed
De Berdt that they had notified their correspon-
dents to ship goods with the express condition
that the act imposing duties on tea, glass, paper,
and colors be totally repealed, and had forwarded
to him papers with their views on the matter.
The original is in a collection of a part of the
papers of Arthur Lee, who succeeded De Berdt
as the agent of Massachusetts, and thus retained
many of the documents emanating from the prov-
ince and from Boston during the early days of
the controversy. The younger Richard Henry
Lee, after writing the Lives of the elder of his
name and of Arthur Lee, divided the manuscripts
which had come to him among three institu-
tions,— the Libraries of Harvard College, of the
University of Virginia, and of the American
Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. No rec-
ognizable principle of adaptation was followed
in the division, sets being broken, — those now in
Virginia containing many papers of the utmost
interest for Boston history, and in some cases
when others closely allied with them are in the
Harvard College collection. The Editor has been
kindly entrusted with these other collections by
their respective guardians. Those in the College
Library have been calendared in print under his
direction. — ED.]
2 [Richard Frothingham has minutely traced
the progress of events and feelings of the people
during this period, — from October, 1768, to the
Massacre, — in his papers, " The Sam Adams
30 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
until the revenue act should be repealed. The young, unmarried women
followed their example, and signed a document beginning as follows : " We,
the daughters of those Patriots who have appeared ... for the public
interest, ... do now with pleasure engage with them in denying ourselves
the drinking of foreign tea." ' . . . Even the children caught the spirit of
patriotism, and imitated their elders in maintaining what they considered to
be their " constitutional " rights.2
It was now nearly a year and a half since the troops had come to Boston,
and their presence was a continual source of irritation to the inhabitants.
Their services were not wanted ; their parades were offensive ; their bearing
often insulting. Quarrels would occasionally arise between individual sol-
diers and citizens. " The troops greatly corrupt our morals," said Dr.
Cooper, " and are in every sense an oppression. May Heaven soon deliver
us from this great evil ! " 3
In this state of things, any unusual excitement might at any time occasion
disastrous results. Towards the end of February an event occurred which
threw the public mind into a ferment, and prepared the way for the tragic
scenes of the fifth of March. A few of the merchants had rendered them-
selves unpopular by continuing to sell articles which had been proscribed.
One of them in particular4 had incurred such displeasure that his store was
marked by the crowd with a wooden image as one to be shunned. One of
his friends, a well known informer,5 attempted to remove the image, but was
driven back by the mob. Greatly exasperated, he fired a random shot
among them and mortally wounded a young lad,6 who died the following
evening. The funeral was attended by five hundred children, walking in
front of the bier; six of his school-mates held the pall, followed by thirteen
hundred of the inhabitants. The bells of the town were tolled, and the
whole community partook of the feeling of sadness and indignation that
innocent blood had been shed in the streets of Boston.7
A few days later, a still more serious occurrence took place. On Friday,
March 2, two soldiers, belonging to the Twenty-ninth Regiment, were pass-
ing Gray's rope-walk, near the present Pearl Street, and got into a quarrel
with one of the workmen. Insults and threats were freely exchanged, and
the soldiers then went off and found some of their comrades, who returned
with them and challenged the ropemakers to a boxing-match. A fight
Regiments," in Atlantic Monthly, June, August, l Boston Gazette, Feb. 12, 1770, et seq. ; Loss-
1862, and November, 1863; matter which is only ing, Field-Book, i. 488.
epitomized in his Life of Warren. John Mein, 2 Lossing, " 1776," p. 90.
the printer, had refused to join in any non-impor- 3 Rev. S. Cooper to Governor Thomas Pow-
tation agreement, and his name had been pub- nail, Jan. i, 1770.
licly proclaimed as one to be avoided in trade. * Theophilus Lillie.
He in turn printed the State of the Importation of 8 Ebenezer Richardson, who lived near by.
Great Britain with the Port of Boston from Jan- 6 Christopher Snider.
uary to August, 1768, and showed some of his 7 Evening Post, Feb. 26, 1770. [See Hutch-
detractors in the light of importers. See Henry inson ; Gordon, i. 276; John Adams's Works, ii.
Stevens's Historical Collections, i. No. 393. — ED.] 227. — ED.]
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION. 31
ensued, in which sticks and cutlasses were freely used. Several were
wounded on both sides, but none were killed. The proprietor and others
interposed, and prevented further disturbance.1 The next day it was re-
ported that the fight would be resumed on Monday. Colonel Carr, com-
mander of the Twenty-ninth, complained to the Governor of the conduct of
the rope-makers. Hutchinson laid the matter before the council, some of
whom freely expressed the opinion that the only way to prevent such colli-
sions was to withdraw the troops to the Castle ; but no precautionary meas-
ures were taken. At an early hour on Monday evening, March 5, numerous
parties of men and boys were strolling through the streets, and whenever
they met any of the soldiers a sharp altercation took place. The ground
was frozen and covered with a slight fall of snow, and a young moon shed
its mild light upon the scene. Small bands of soldiers were seen passing
between the main guard 2 and Murray's barracks in Brattle Street, armed
with clubs and cutlasses. They were met by a crowd of citizens carrying
canes and sticks. Taunts and insults soon led to blows. Some of the
soldiers levelled their firelocks, and threatened to " make a lane " through
the crowd. Just then an officer3 on his way to the barracks, finding the
passage obstructed by the affray, ordered the men into the yard and had
the gate shut. The alarm-bell, however, had called out the people from
their homes, and many came down towards King Street, supposing there
was a fire there. When the occasion of the disturbance was known, the
well disposed among them advised the crowd to return home ; but others
shouted: "To the main guard! To the main guard! That's the nest!"
Upon this they moved off towards King Street, some going up Cornhill,
some through Wilson's Lane, and others through Royal Exchange Lane.
Shortly after nine o'clock an excited party approached the Custom House,
which stood on the north side of King Street, at the lower corner of
Exchange Lane, where a sentinel was standing at his post. "There's the
soldier who knocked me down ! " said a boy whom the sentinel, a few min-
utes before, had hit with the but-end of his musket. " Kill him ! Knock
him down ! " cried several voices. The sentinel retreated up the steps and
loaded his gun. " The lobster is going to fire," exclaimed a boy who stood
by. " If you fire you must die for it," said Henry Knox,4 who was passing.
1 [See Drake, Landmarks, 274. It was men meeting-house. His father, William, a ship-
of the Fourteenth Regiment who were engaged master, had married Mary, a daughter of Robert
in this affair, and their barracks were in the Campbell ; and Henry was their seventh son,
modern Atkinson Street. — ED.] and was born in 1750, in a house which Drake,
2 The " main guard " was located at the head Life of Henry Knox, p. 9, depicts, and says was
of King Street, directly opposite the south door standing, in 1873, on Sea Street, opposite the
of the Town House. The soldiers detailed for head of Drake's wharf. Losing his father in
daily guard-duty met here for assignment to 1762, Henry went into the employ of Wharton&
their several posts. Bowes, who had succeeded the year before to
3 Captain Goldfinch. the stand of Daniel Henchman, on the south
4 Afterward general, and secretary of war. corner of State and Washington streets. Knox
[Knox was of Scotch-Presbyterian stock from the was in this employ when the massacre occurred;
north of Ireland, and his family belonged to the but the next year (1771) he started business on
parish of Moorhead, the pastor of the Long Lane his own account on the same street, about where
32 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
" I don't care," replied the sentry ; " if they touch me, I '11 fire." While he
was saying this, snowballs and other missiles were thrown at him, where-
upon he levelled his gun, warned the crowd to keep off, and then shouted
to the main guard across the street, at the top of his voice, for help. A
sergeant, with a file of seven men, was sent over at once, through the crowd,
to protect him. The sentinel then came down the steps and fell in with
the file, when the order was given to prime and load. Captain Thomas
Preston of the Twenty-ninth soon joined his men, making the whole num-
ber in arms ten.1 About fifty or sixty people had now gathered before
the Custom House. When they saw the soldiers loading, some of them
stepped forward, shouting, whistling, and daring them to fire. " You arc
cowardly rascals," they said ; " lay aside your guns and we are ready for
you." "Are the soldiers loaded?" inquired a bystander. "Yes," answered
the Captain, "with powder and ball." "Are they going to fire on the in-
habitants?" asked another. " They cannot," said the Captain, " without my
orders." " For God's sake," said Knox, seizing Preston by the coat, " take
your men back again. If they fire, your life must answer for the conse-
quences." " I know what I 'm about," said he, hastily; and then, seeing his
men pressing the people with their bayonets, while clubs were being freely
used, he rushed in among them. The confusion was now so great, some
calling out, "Fire, fire if you dare! " and others, "Why don't you fire?"
that no one could tell whether Captain Preston ordered the men to fire or
not; but with or without orders, and certainly without any legal warning,
seven of the soldiers, one after another, fired upon the citizens, three of
whom were killed outright: Crispus Attucks,2 Samuel Gray, and James
Caldwell ; and two others, Samuel Maverick 3 and Patrick Carr, died soon
after from their wounds. Six others were badly wounded. It is not known
that any of the eleven took part in the disturbance except Attucks, who had
been a conspicuous leader of the mob.
When the firing began the people instinctively fell back, but soon
after returned for the killed and wounded. Captain Preston restrained his
the Globe newspaper now is, calling his estab- of the royalist secretary of the province, Thomas
lishment the " London Bookstore." At least one Flucker, who had vainly tried to prevent the
book, Cadogan on the Gout, bears his imprint, union ; and a year from the day of their marriage
1772, and at the end of it is a list of medical and Knox had slipped out of Boston clandestinely,
other books which he had imported. Brinley to avoid interception by Gage, while his wife
Catalogue, No. 1585. See H. G. Otis's letter in concealed in her quilted skirts the sword herhus-
N. E. Hist, and Geneal. Reg., July, 1876, p. band was afterwards to make honorable. — ED.]
362. In November, 1774, Knox writes to Long- J Some accounts say eight.
2 Usually called a mulatto, sometimes a slave ;
and in the American Historical Record for De-
cember, 1872, he is held to have been a half-
breed Indian. [George Livermore gives us a
glimpse of the past life of Crispus Attucks as a
man in London : " The magazines and new pub- slave, in his " Historical Research on Negroes as
lications concerning the American dispute are Slaves," in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc. 1862, Aug., p.
the only things which I desire you to send at 173. See also N.E. Hist, and Geneal. Reg.,Qc\..
present." It will be remembered that Knox but 1859^.300. — ED.]
six months before this had married a daughter 8 [See Sumner's East Boston, p. 171. — ED.]
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION. 33
men from a second discharge, and ordered them back to the main guard.
The drums beat to arms, and several companies of the Twenty-ninth formed,
under Colonel Carr, in three divisions, in the neighborhood of the Town
House. And now the alarm was everywhere given. The church bells
were rung, the town drums beat to arms, and King Street was soon thronged
with citizens who poured in from all directions. The sight of the mangled
bodies of the slain sent terror and indignation through their ranks. The
excitement surpassed anything which Boston had ever known before. It was
indeed a " night of consternation." No one knew what would happen next ;
but in that awful hour the people were guided by wise and prudent leaders,
who restrained their passions and turned to the law for justice. About ten
o'clock the Lieut-Governor appeared on the scene and called for Captain
Preston, to whom he put some sharp and searching questions. Forced
by the crowd he then went to the Town House, and soon appeared on the
balcony, where he spoke with much feeling and power concerning the
unhappy event, and promised to order an inquiry in the morning, saying
" the law should have its course ; he would live and die by the law." On
being informed that the people would not disperse until Captain Preston
was arrested, he at once ordered a court of inquiry; and after consultation
with the military officers, he succeeded in having the troops removed to
their barracks, after which the people began to disperse. Preston's exam-
ination lasted three hours, and resulted in his being bound over for trial.
The soldiers were also placed under arrest. It was three o'clock in the
morning before Hutchinson retired to his house. By his judicious exer-
tions he succeeded in calming a tumult which, had it been left to itself,
might in a single night have involved the town in a conflict of much greater
proportions. Early in the morning, large numbers of people from the sur-
rounding country flocked into the town to learn the details of the tragedy,
and to confer with the citizens as to what was to be done. Faneuil Hall
was thrown open for an informal meeting at eleven o'clock. The town
clerk, William Cooper, acted as chairman until the selectmen could be
summoned from the council chamber, where they were in conference with
the Lieut.-Governor. On their appearance, Thomas Gushing was chosen
moderator; and Dr. Cooper, brother of the town clerk, opened the meet-
ing with prayer. Several witnesses brought in testimony concerning the
events of the previous night. A committee of fifteen, including Adams,
Gushing, Hancock, and Molineux, was chosen to wait on the Lieut.-Gov-
ernor and inform him that the inhabitants and soldiery could no longer live
together in safety ; and that nothing could restore peace and prevent fur-
ther carnage but the immediate removal of the troops.1 In the afternoon
at three o'clock a regular town-meeting was convened at the same place, by
legal warrant, to consider what measures could be taken to preserve the
1 [Dr. Belknap records an anecdote told by him and demanded the removal of the troops
Governor Hancock, of the trepidation which after the massacre. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., March,
seized Hutchinson when the committee went to 1858, p. 308. — ED.]
VOL. III. — 5.
34
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
*/
1 [This cut follows a painting which has for and is believed, from the costume, to represent
many years hung in the Essex Institute, Salem, the Patriot of this name ; though the earlier
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION.
35
SAMUEL ADAMS.
peace of the town. The attendance was so large that the meeting was ad-
journed to the Old South, which was soon crowded to its utmost capacity.
Speaker of the same name, who died in 1748,
may possibly have been the sitter. The painting
itself has no inscription, as the courteous Libra-
rian, Dr. Henry Wheatland, informs me. In
1876 a descendant caused a copy of it to be
made for Independence Hall, Philadelphia, in
the belief that it represented the later Thomas
Gushing. He was born in Bromfield Street,
on the spot long occupied by the public house
of that name. — ED.]
1 [This cut follows the larger of Copley's por-
traits of Adams, and was painted when he was
forty-nine. The smaller and later one has already
been given in Vol. II. p. 438. The present pic-
ture for many years hung in Faneuil Hall, and is
now in the Art Museum; it has been engraved
before in Wells's Life of Samuel Adams, vol. i.,
in Bancroft's United States, vol. vii., and else-
where. It represents the Patriot, clad in dark
red, defending the rights of the people under the
36 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Samuel Adams presented the report of the committee, which was that they
could not obtain a promise of the removal of more than one of the regi-
ments at present. " Both regiments or none ! " was the cry with which the
meeting received this announcement. The answer was voted to be unsatis-
factory ; and another committee was appointed, consisting of Samuel Adams,
John Hancock, William Molineux, William Phillips, Joseph \Varren, Joshua
Henshaw, and Samuel Pemberton, to inform the Lieut.-Governor that
nothing less than the total and immediate removal of the troops would
satisfy the people. At a late hour the committee returned with a favorable
report, which was received by the meeting with expressions of the greatest
satisfaction. Before adjourning, a strong military watch was provided for ;
and the whole subject of the public defence was left in the hands of a
" committee of safety," consisting of those who had just waited on the
Lieut.-Governor.
On Thursday, March 8, the funeral of the slain was an occasion of
mournful interest to the whole community. The stores were generally
closed. The bells of Boston, Charlestown, Cambridge, and Roxbury were
tolled. Never before, it was said, was there so large an assemblage in the
streets of Boston. The procession started from the scene of the massacre
in King Street, and proceeded through the main street six deep, followed
by a long train of carriages, to the Middle or Granary Burying-ground,
where the bodies of the victims were deposited in one grave.
After the removal of the troops to the Castle, nothing occurred to dis-
turb the usual quiet of the town. The people waited patiently for the law
to have its course. In October, Preston's case came on for trial in the
Superior Court, followed in November by that of the soldiers implicated in
the massacre. Through the exertions of Samuel Adams and others, the
best legal talent in the province was secured on both sides. The prosecu-
tion was conducted by Robert Treat Paine, in the absence of the king's at-
torney.1 Auchmuty, the prisoners' counsel, had the valuable assistance of
John Adams and Josiah Quincy, the distinguished Patriots, who gener-
ously consented to take the position, — a severe ordeal at such a time, — in
order that the town might be free from any charge of unfairness, and that
the accused might have the advantage of every legal indulgence.2 As a
Charter, — as he maybe supposed to have ap- l [This was Jonathan Sewall, who, as John
peared when he confronted Hutchinson and his Adams says, "disappeared." It is probable that
council on the day after the massacre. Wells, Samuel Quincy — a few months later to be made
Life of Adams, i. 475. The Copley head of Sam solicitor-general — assisted Paine, as stated by
Adams was engraved by J. Norman in An Im- Ward in his edition of Curwen's Journal, and
partial History of the War in America, Boston, by Mr. Morse in Vol. IV. ; though I find no con-
1781. The journals of the Boston committee of temporary authority for such statement, unless
correspondence, as well as the papers of Sam what John Adams says (Works, x. 201) in con-
Adams, are in the possession of Bancroft the nection with the soldiers' trial applies as well to
historian. Frothingham, Life of Warren, p. vii. Preston's. Quincy is known, however, to have
Wells, Life of Sam Adams, vol. i. pp. vi. and x., been on the Government side in the soldiers'
gives a particular account of the Adams papers, trials. — ED.]
Bancroft's United States, p. vi. preface. See an 2 [See the chapter on "The Bench and Bar,"
estimate of Adams in Mr. Goddard's ch. — ED.] by John T. Morse, Jr., in Vol. IV. — ED.]
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION.
37
result of the trial, Preston was acquitted ; six of the soldiers were brought
in "not guilty; " and two were found guilty of manslaughter, branded in the
1 [Of this picture there is this account by
Miss E. S. Quincy in Mason's Life of Gilbert
Stuart, p. 244 : " There was an engraving that
his widow, Mrs. Abigail Quincy, considered an
excellent likeness. This print, Stuart had de-
clined to copy; but after reading the memoir of
J. Quincy, Jr., published in 1825, he said : ' I
must paint the portrait of that man ; ' and re-
quested that the print, and the portrait of his
brother Samuel Quincy, by Copley, should be
sent to his studio." Miss Quincy says in a pri-
vate letter: "The portrait was entirely satis-
factory to my father and Mrs. Storer. The cast
in his eye was one of his characteristics which
they would not have allowed to be omitted."
Jonathan Mason, who studied law in Mr. Quin-
cy's office, Mr. Gardiner Greene, who saw him
in London, Dr. Holbrook, of Milton, and many
others testified to the likeness. There is an
estimate of Quincy in Mr. Goddard's chapter
in this volume. Quincy lived on the present
Washington Street, a little south of Milk Street.
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
hand in open court, and then discharged. These trials must ever be re-
garded as a signal instance of that desire for impartial justice which char-
acterized the American people throughout the stormy period which ushered
in the Revolution.1
The manuscript of instructions to the represen-
tatives of the town, in his handwriting (1770),
is noted in Mass. Hist.
Soc. Proc., December,
1873, P- 2J6- See also
Frothingham's War-
ren, p. 1 56. H is f am i ly
relations can be traced
in Vol. II. p. 547, and
in the accounts of the
Bromfield and Phillips
family in the same vol-
ume pp. 543, 548. His
father-in-law was William Phillips, who was the
son of the Rev. Samuel Phillips of Andover, and
who coming to Boston entered into business con-
nections with Edward Bromfield, a rich mer-
chant, whose daughter he afterward married, in
1764, and whose house on Beacon Street, figured
in Vol. II., p. 521, he bought and lived in till
his death in 1804. He amassed a large fortune,
which has been transmitted to our day, though
now mainly possessed by a collateral branch of
the family. He took the Patriot side in the Rev-
olution ; and in August, 1774, Josiah Quincy, Jr.,
writes to Samuel Adams, then in Philadelphia :
" It is very difficult to keep our poor in order.
Mr. Phillips has done wonders among them. I
do not know what we should do without him."
After his daughter (Mrs. Quincy) lost her husband
in 1775, she with her young son, the future Pres-
ident Quincy, lived with her father till 1786.
Mr. Phillips 's two younger daughters — twins,
born in 1756, Sarah and Hannah — married re-
spectively Edward Dowse and Major Samuel
Shaw, who had been an aid to General Knox
/4^?-r^t^jc^Cr t^/^
in the Revolution. Both were pioneers in open-
ing trade with China after the war, and Shaw's
memoir has been written by President Quincy.
Shaw lived in Bulfinch Place, in a house built
for him in 1793 by Charles Bulfinch; and it is
to-day, shorn of its ample grounds, known as
Hotel Waterston. An account of Phillips can
be found in the American Quarterly Register,
xiii., No. i. — ED.]
1 For details see Lives of John Adams and
Josiah Quincy. The Brief used by the former is
in the Boston Public Library. [It is a small
brochure of ten leaves, six by four inches, fast-
ened by a pin, and four of the leaves are blank.
The annexed fac-simile is of the opening para-
graph. Kidder, who formerly owned the docu-
ment, has printed it in his Boston Massacre, p. 10.
tr
Sampson Salter Blowers, who assisted Adams
and Quincy, had graduated at Harvard in 1763,
and was only made a barrister in 1773; and in
the next year married a daughter of Benjamin
Kent, with whom he went to Nova Scotia at the
time of the loyalist exodus. The presiding
judge was the younger Lynde, whose portrait is
given in Vol. II. p. 558. All that remains of his
charge is given in the appendix of The Diaries
of Benjamin Lynde, and of Benjamin Lynde, Jr.
Boston, privately printed, 1880.
John Adams wrote to J. Morse in 1816 ( Works
of John Adams, x. 201) that the report of Pres-
ton's trial " was taken down, and transmitted to
England, by a Scottish or English stenogra-
pher, without any known authority but his
own. The British Government have never
permitted it to see the light, and probably
never will." When the trial of William Wemms
and seven other soldiers came on, Nov. 27, 1770,
the same short-hand writer, John Hodgson, was
employed ; and the published report, — entitled
The Trial of William Wemms, . . . for the
Murder of Crispus Attucks. . . . Published by per-
mission of the Court. . . . Boston : printed by J.
Fleeming, and sold at his Printing Office, nearly
opposite the White Horse Tavern in Newbury Street.
M.DCC.LXX., — makes a duodecimo of two
hundred and seventeen pages. It gives the evi-
dence and pleas of counsel. The last seven
pages are occupied with a report, "from the
minutes of a gentleman who attended," of the
trial, December 12, of Edward Manwaring and
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION.
39
Previous to 1770 the people of Boston had celebrated the Gunpowder
Plot annually with public demonstrations. After the Boston massacre, the
others, who were accused by several persons of
firing on the crowd during the massacre from
an adjacent window in
the Custom House ;
but they were easily
acquitted. This little
volume was reprinted in Bos-
ton in 1807 and 1824, and
again in Kidder's monograph
in 1870. The plan of King
Street, used at the trials, pre-
pared by Paul Revere, is in
the collection of Judge Mellen
Chamberlain, of the Boston
Public Library. An examina-
tion of the reports of the trial
is made in P. W. Chandler's
American Criminal Trials, \.
A minute narrative of the
events was printed between
black lines in the Boston Gazette
of March 12, but the papers of the day made few
references to the event till after the trial, when
more or less discontent with the verdict was
manifested. Such particularly marked a series
of articles in the Gazette, signed " Vindex "
(Sam Adams), which reflected upon the argu-
ments of the counsel for defence. Buckingham,
Reminiscences, i. 168.
Some verses inscribed upon one of the pict-
ures of the massacre closed as follows, referring
to Boston and Preston : —
" Should venal courts, the scandal of the land,
Snatch the relentless villain from her hand,
Keen execrations, on this plate inscribed,
Shall reach a judge who never can be bribed."
A letter from William Palfrey to John Wilkes,
dated Boston, March 13 (1770), is printed in
Mass. Hist.Soc. Proc., March, 1863, P- 4^°- (See
also Sparks, American Biography, new series,
vol. viii.) And on p. 484 is printed one from
Thomas Hutchinson to Lord Hillsborough on
the same theme.
There are some particulars entered upon the
Town Records of the statements made at the
meeting at Faneuil Hall the next forenoon ; but
so many were ready to testify, that a committee
was appointed to gather the evidence. The an-
nexed autographs are attached to a letter ad-
dressed to the agent of Massachusetts in London,
the original of which is in the Lee collection
of papers in the University of Virginia Library ;
and with the letter was sent a copy of a Nar-
rative authorized by the town. A similar letter,
and other copies, were sent to various important
people in England, — a list of whom, together
with the letter, is printed at the end of some
copies of the Narrative, which was also probably
drawn up by the same gentlemen, and, as print-
ed, is called A short Narrative of the Horrid
Massacre in Boston perpetrated in the evening of
the Fifth Day of March, 1770, by Soldiers of the
XXIXth Regiment, with some Observations on the
State of Things prior to that Catastrophe. Boston :
printed by order of the Town, by Messrs. Edes &°
Gill. MDCCLXX. It had an appendix of depo-
sitions, including one of Jeremiah Belknap ; but
another, of Joseph Belknap, is contained in the
Belknap Papers, i. 69, in the cabinet of the
Massachusetts Historical Society. A large fold-
ing plate showed the scene in State Street. It
was immediately reprinted in London, in at least
three editions, — two by W. Bingley,in Newgate
Street, with the large folding plate re-engraved ;
and the third by E. and C. Dilby, with a smaller
plate, a fac-simile of which, somewhat reduced,
is given on the next page. The supplement of
the Boston Evening Post, June 18, 1770, has news
from London, May 5, announcing the republica-
tion of it, and stating that the frontispiece was
engraved from a copper-plate print sent over
with the "authenticated narrative."
Copies of this Short Narrative were sent at
once to England, but the remainder of the edi-
tion was not published, for fear of giving " an
undue bias to the minds of the jury," till after
the trial, when Additional Observations, of twelve
pages, were added to it. These were likewise
published separately. Both of these documents
were reprinted in New York in 1849, and again
at Albany in 1870, in Mr. Kidder's History of
the Boston Massacre. In this supplemental pub-
lication it was intimated that the friends of
Government had sent despatches "home" "to
represent the town in a disadvantageous light."
It is certain that a tract did appear shortly
in London, called : A fair Account of the late
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
fifth of March was observed until the peace of 1783,* when the Fourth of
July celebration was substituted by the town authorities. Unquestionably
the influence of the Boston massacre upon the growing sentiment of inde-
pendence throughout the colonies was very great.2 Public opinion was
immediately shaped by it, and the remaining ties binding America to
Britain were everywhere visibly relaxed. " On that night," wrote John
unhappy Disturbance at Boston in New England ;
extracted from the Depositions that have been
made concerning it by persons of all parties ; with
an Appendix containing some affidavits and other
evidences relating to this affair, not mentioned in
the Narrative of it that has been published at Bos-
ton. London : printed for B. White, in Fleet
American War is also at variance with the
town's narrative.
Of the later historians Mr. Frothingham in
the last of his papers on " The Sam Adams
Regiments" (Atlantic Monthly, November, 1863),
and in his Life 'of Warren, ch. vi., has given a
very excellent account, " carefully collating the
evidence that appears to be
authentic ; " but he confesses
it is vain to reconcile all state-
ments. The events are also
minutely described in Wells's
Life of Samuel Adams, i. 308.
Bancroft, United States, vol.
vi. ch. xliii., examines the evi-
dence for provocation, and
concludes Preston ordered
the firing. He cites, through
the chapter, his authorities.
— En.]
1 Orations were delivered
on the successive anniversa-
ries by Thomas Young, Joseph
Warren, Benjamin Church,
John Hancock, Joseph War-
ren, Peter Thacher, Benjamin
Hichborn, Jonathan W. Aus-
tin, William Tudor, Jonathan
Mason, Thomas Dawes,
George R. Minot, and Thomas
Welsh. [These, having been
printed separately, were col-
lected and issued by Peter
Edes in 1785, and reissued in
1807. There are accounts of
them and their authors in Lor-
ing's Hundred Boston Orators.
Paul Revere took the occasion
of the first anniversary of the
massacre, in 1771, to rouse the
sensibilities of the crowd by
D »^ » «t / -2 giving illuminated pictures of
e perpetrated mKina JiCreft Beaton on MarcAj.J77O. in tffoc* e
. . " , the event, with allegorical ac-
J1* Sam' Gray. JamlMai'cru&.Jamej CalthvtJl &upu* AaueJe* . , . ,
compamments, at the windows
Carr »a-fEMf<i. **r ether* Wounded a*o of tntsnJfor tatty Q{ ^ h()use ^ -^onh Square.
Lane; MDCCLXX. There is a copy in Harvard "The spectators," says the account in the
College Library. It is the Government view of Gazette, " were struck with solemn silence, and
the massacre, and is duly fortified by counter their countenances covered with a melancholy
depositions, chiefly by officers and men of the gloom." — ED.]
garrison. Hutchinson has given his account of 2 [See the letter to Franklin in Mass. Hist. Soc.
it in his posthumous third volume, and Gordon Proc., November, 1865. AlsoSparks's Franklin,
in his first volume. Stedman's account in his vii. 499. — ED.]
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION. 41
Adams long afterward, " the formation of American Independence was
laid." " From that moment," said Mr. Webster on one occasion, " we
may date the severance of the British empire."
On the very day of the Boston massacre Lord North brought in a bill
to repeal the Townshend revenue act, with the exception of the preamble
and the duty on tea, which were retained to signify the continued suprem-
acy of Parliament. This proposal met with much opposition, but was
finally carried, and approved by the king on April 12.
As the great principle at issue was not relinquished, this new measure
of the Government gave .but little satisfaction to the colonists. Trade,
however, revived, and before the end of 1770 it was open in everything
but tea.1
In the month of September Hutchinson received a royal order in effect
introducing martial law into Massachusetts, in so far as to compel him to
give up the fortress to General Gage, or such officer as he might appoint.
This order was in direct contravention of the charter of the province,
which gave the command of the militia and the forts to the civil Governor.
After a little hesitation Hutchinson decided to obey the order, and, without
consulting the council, he at once handed over the Castle to Colonel Dal-
rymple; and from that hour it remained in the possession of England
until the evacuation of Boston in March, 1776. The Provincial Assembly,
meeting at Cambridge for the third time, and keeping a day of fasting,
humiliation, and prayer, entered a solemn protest against the new and in-
supportable grievances under which they labored.2 At this time Franklin,
Boston's honored son, was elected as the agent of Massachusetts to repre-
sent her cause before the king.3 Certainly no better choice could have been
made. In the fulness of his ripened powers, possessed of rare wisdom and
integrity, and animated by a spirit of fervent patriotism, he discharged the
grave duties of his position with conspicuous fidelity and zeal.
The next year was not marked by any very notable event. Hutchinson,
who had now received his coveted commission as Governor, maintained a
controversy with the Assembly upon several matters of legislation, and
1 The self-imposed restrictions adopted by the filled by Gushing (the Speaker), Hancock, Sam
colonists in reference to foreign articles had pro- Adams, and John Adams ; and to show their
ducecl a great effect in checking extravagance, influence the journals indicate that three, and
promoting domestic industry and economy, and sometimes all of them, were on every important
opening to the people new sources of wealth, committee for a session which was much con-
Home-made articles, which at first came into use cerned with political movements. John Adams
from necessity, soon became fashionable. At was at this period a resident of Boston from
Harvard College the graduating class of 1770 April, 1768, to April, 1771 ; but he still retained
took their degrees in homespun. his office in Boston after removing his family to
2 [John Adams was now a representative Braintree ; and again he established a home in
from Boston, succeeding Bowdoin, who had gone Queen Street, opposite the Court House, in
into the Council. See John Adams's Works, ii. 1772. — ED.]
233. " Although Sam Adams was now the 3 [The choice of Franklin was made Oct. 24,
master-mover, John Adams seems to have sue- 1770; his appointment, signed by Thomas Cush-
ceeded to the post of legal adviser, which had ing, speaker, is among the Lee Papers, Univer-
been filled by Oxenbridge Thacher and James sity of Virginia. See Mr. Towle's chapter in
Otis." The four "Boston seats" were thus Vol. II. — ED.]
VOL. III. — 6.
42 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
arbitrarily insisted upon their meeting in Cambridge, until the opposition
to it became so strong that he was obliged to consent to a removal to
Boston.1 The House soon after censured the Governor for accepting a
salary from the king in violation of the charter; and the popular indigna-
tion was still further aroused when it became known that royal stipends
were provided for the judges in the province. This led to a town-meeting
(Oct. 28, 1772), at which an address to his Excellency was prepared, re-
questing information of the truth of the report. The Governor declined to
make public any of his official advices. Another petition was drafted at
an adjourned meeting, requesting the Governor to convene the Assembly
on the day to which it stood prorogued (December 2) ; and at the same
time the meeting expressed its horror of the reported judicial establish-
ment, as contrary not only to the charter but to the fundamental principles
of common law. This petition also was rejected in a reply which was read
several times at an adjourned meeting and voted " not satisfactory." It
was then resolved that the inhabitants of Boston " have ever had and
ought to have a right to petition the king, or his representative, for a re-
dress of such grievances as they feel, or for preventing of such as they
have reason to apprehend ; and to communicate their sentiments to other
towns." Adams now stood up and made that celebrated motion, which
gave visible shape to the American Revolution, and endowed it with life
and strength. The record2 says: —
" It was then moved by Mr. Samuel Adams that a committee of correspondence 3
be appointed, to consist of twenty-one persons, to state the rights of the colonists,
and of this province in particular, as men and Christians, and as subjects ; and to
communicate and publish the same to the several towns, and to the world, as the sense
of this town, with the infringements and violations thereof that have been or from
time to time may be made."
The motion was carried by a nearly unanimous vote ; but some of the
leading men were not prepared to serve on the committee. It was seen
that the labors would be arduous, prolonged, and gratuitous; and although
they did not oppose, neither did they cordially support a measure which
was really greater than they imagined. The committee, however, was well
1 [The instructions of the town, May 25, mittees ; but Bancroft, who has their papers,
1772, to Gushing and the other representatives, avers positively that Gordon's opinion (i. 312)
are given in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., January, of the idea originating with James Warren of
1871, p. 9. The House later prepared an ad- Plymouth is erroneous. Bancroft's United States,
dress of remonstrance to the king against taxa- vi. 428. See further, Wells's Samiifl Adams, \.
tion without representation, and, July 14, 1772, 509, ii. 62; Frothingham's Rise of the Republic,
it was despatched, signed by Gushing. An origi- pp. 284, 312, 327 ; Barry's Massachusetts, ii. 448,
nal is among the Lee Papers, in the University and other references in Winsor's Handbook, p.
of Virginia. — ED.] 20. The town's committee of correspondence
2 Boston Town Records, November, 1772. must not be confounded with the Assembly's
3 [John Adams said that Sam Adams "invent- committee. See R. Frothingham in Mass. Hist.
ed" the committee of correspondence. Froth- Soc. Proc., Dec. 16, 1873. See earlier in this
ingham, Life of Warren, p. 200. There has been chapter for Mayhew's suggestion. See also
some controversy about the origin of these com- Hutchinson, iii. 361 ; and Gordon, i. 314. — ED.]
THE BEGIN. XING OF THE REVOLUTION.
43
LIEUT.-GOVERNOR ANDREW OLIVER.1
constructed, with Adams and Warren and other citizens of well known
character and the highest patriotism. Otis, though broken in health, was
named chairman, as a compliment for his former services.
1 [This cut follows Copley's portrait of An-
drew Oliver, owned by Dr. F. E. Oliver, by
whose kind permission it is copied. Perkins's
Copley, p. 90. For his family connections see
Mr. Whitmore's chapter in Vol. II. p. 539, and
his more extended genealogy of the Olivers in
N. E. Hist, and Geneal. Reg., April, 1865, p.
101. The two sons of Daniel Oliver (who died
1732, leaving a bequest to the town; see Vol.
judge and mandamus councillor), and Chief-Jus-
tice Peter Oliver. They had close family rela-
II. p. 539) were Andrew Oliver, the Lieut-Gov-
ernor (who died 1774, and was father of Andrew,
tions with Governor Hutchinson, for Andrew's
second wife, Mary, was sister of Hutchinson's
wife, the two being daughters of William San-
ford ; and Dr. Peter Oliver, son of the chief-
justice, married Sarah, daughter of Governor
Hutchinson. Andrew, the mandamus council-
lor, married a sister of the second Judge Lynde,
who presided at the massacre trials. The family
of the Lieut.-Governor, by his second wife, were
refugees with their uncle, the chief-justice. — ED.]
44 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
This committee of correspondence met the next day and chose William
Cooper as clerk. By a unanimous vote they gave to each other the pledge
of honor "not to divulge any
Part of the conversation
/ at tneir meetings to
*££t<- any person vvhat-
soever, excepting
what the committee
itself should make
known."
The work to be
done was divided
between them. Adams was appointed to prepare a statement of the rights
of the colonists ; Warren of the several violations of those rights ; and
Church was to draft a letter to the other towns.
On November 20 the report was presented at a legal meeting in Faneuil
Hall. The statement of rights and of grievances, and the letter to the
towns, were masterly presentations of the cause, and carried conviction
throughout the province. Plymouth, Marblehead, Roxbury, and Cam-
bridge responded at once to the call ; and it was not long before commit-
tees of correspondence were everywhere established. The other Colonies
accepted the plan.1 Virginia saw in it the prospect of union throughout
the continent. So did South Carolina. " An American Congress," wrote
Samuel Adams to Arthur Lee (April 9, 1773), " is no longer the fiction of
a political enthusiast." 2
In the spring of 1773 the East India Company, finding itself embarrassed
from the excessive accumulation of teas in England, owing to the persistent
refusal of American merchants to import them, applied to Parliament for
assistance, and obtained an act empowering the Company to export teas to
America without paying the ordinary duty in England. This would enable
the Company to sell at such low rates that it was thought the colonists
would purchase, even with the tax of threepence on the pound. Accord-
ingly ships were laden with the article and despatched to Charleston, Phila-
delphia, New York, and Boston, and persons were selected in each of these
ports to act as consignees, or "tea commissioners" as they were called.
1 [The report of the committee of correspond- agency of Franklin, and forwarded to the Patri-
ence, made Nov. 20, 1772, was, by order of the ots in Boston. The result was a formal petition
town, printed by Edes & Gill, as The Votes and to the king for the removal of the odious f unc-
Proceedings of the Freeholders and other Inhabi- tionaries. These letters were printed in Boston
tants. Frothingham, Warren, p. 211, etc., has in 1773, and in London in 1774. Mass. Hist, Soc.
much to show the effect this meeting was having Proc., 1878. [See further on this matter, with a
throughout the colonies. — ED.] note on the authorities, Vol. II. p. 86 John
2 Secret letters, written by Governor Hutch- Adams saw them as early as March 22, 1773.
inson and Lieut.-Governor Oliver to friends in (Works, ii. 318.) The letters were first pub-
England, favoring military intervention and lished in Boston, June 16, 1773. Thomas
otherwise injuring the cause of the colonists, Newell's "diary" in Proc., October, 1877, p.
were discovered about this time through the 339. — ED.]
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION. 45
When this news became known, all America was in a flame. The people
were not to be duped by any such appeal to their cupidity. They had
taken their stand upon a principle, and not until that was recognized
would they withdraw their opposition. It seemed strange that England
had not discerned that fact long before.
Nowhere was the feeling more intense on the subject than in Boston.
The consignees were prominent men and friends of the Governor.1 On
the night of November i they were each one summoned to appear on the
following Wednesday noon, at Liberty Tree, to resign their commissions.
Handbills were also posted over the town, inviting citizens to meet at the
same place.2 On the day appointed, the bells rang from eleven to twelve
o'clock, and the town-crier summoned the people to meet at Liberty Tree,
which was decorated with a large flag. About five hundred assembled,
including many of the leading Patriots. As the consignees failed to appear,
a committee was appointed to wait upon them and request their resigna-
tion ; and, in case they refused, to present a resolve to them declaring them
to be enemies of their country. The committee, accompanied by many of
the people, repaired to Clarke's warehouse and had a brief parley with the
consignees, who refused to resign their trust.
A legal town-meeting was now called for, and the selectmen issued a war-
rant for one to be held on the fifth.3 It was largely attended, and Hancock4
was chosen moderator. A series of eight resolves was adopted, similar to
those which had been recently passed in Philadelphia, and extensively circu-
lated through the press. The consignees were again, through a committee,
asked to resign ; and again they refused, and the meeting adjourned.
On the seventeenth a vessel arrived, announcing that the tea-ships were
on the way to Boston and might be hourly expected. Another legal meet-
ing was immediately notified for the next day, at which Hancock was again
the moderator. Word was sent to the consignees that it was the desire of
the town that they would give a final answer whether they would resign their
appointment. The answer came that they could not comply with the re-
1 Two of them were his sons, Elisha and 4 [Revere's portrait of Hancock is given in
Thomas ; the others were Richard Clarke and the text. It appeared in the Royal Amer. Mag.,
sons, Benj. Faneuil, Jr., and Joshua Winslow. March, 1774, which contains also Hancock's
2 Draper's Gazette of November 3 contained massacre oration of that year. On Nov. u, 1773,
the following: — Hutchinson had directed Hancock, as colonel of
" To the Freemen of this and the neighboring towns : the cadets, to hold them in readiness for service.
" GENTLEMEN, — You are desired to meet at Liberty Frothingham, Life of Warren, p. 249, mentions
Tree this day at twelve o'clock at noon ; then and there to the original of this order as being in the hands
hear the persons, to whom the tea shipped by the East of th j c ,_ j w Seyer A cur;ous .
India Company is consigned, make a public resignation of
their office as consignees, upon oath ; and also swear that mS of Hls E*Cy John Hancock, late President
they will reship any teas that may be consigned to them by of the American Congress, J. Norman, SC.," ap-
said Company, by the first vessel sailing for London. peared in An Impartial History of the War in
" Boston, Nov. 3, i773. o. C, Secretary. America, Boston, 1781, vol. i. On the Hancock
" |^~ Show us the man that dare take down this." papers (most of which are printed in the Amer-
Several of these handbills are in possession lean Archives) see Massachusetts Historical Society
of the Mass. Hist. Society. Proceedings, January, 1818, p. 271 and Decem-
3 This warrant is now in the possession of ber, 1857 ; and Vol. IV. of this History, p. 5,
Judge Mellen Chamberlain. note. — ED.]
46
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
quest.1 Upon this the meeting dissolved, without passing any vote or
expressing any opinion. " This sudden dissolution," says Hutchinson,2
" struck more terror into the consignees than the most minatory resolves."
The whole matter was now understood to be in the hands of the com-
mittee of correspondence, who constituted the virtual government of the
province.
On Sunday, November 28, the ship " Dartmouth," Captain Hall, after a
sixty days' passage, appeared in the harbor, with one hundred and four-
The HonV'jOHX HANCOCK.
teen chests of tea.3 There was no time to be lost. Sunday though it
was, the selectmen and the committee of correspondence held meetings
to take immediate action against the entry of the tea. The consignees
had gone to the Castle ; but a promise was obtained from Francis Rotch,
the owner of the vessel, that it should not be entered until Tuesday.
The towns around Boston4 were then invited to attend a mass meeting
in Faneuil Hall the next morning.6 Thousands were ready to respond to
1 The answer is given in Frothingham's Life
of Warren, p. 251.
2 History, Hi. 426.
8 [The next morning, twenty-ninth, the vessel
came up and anchored off Long Wharf (Massa-
chusetts Gazette, November 29). The journal of
the " Dartmouth " is in Traits of the Tea-Party,
p. 259. — ED.
4 Dorchester, Roxbury, Brookline, Cam-
bridge, and Charlestown.
8 The following placard appeared on Monday
morning: —
" FRIENDS ! BRETHREN ! COUNTRYMEN !
"That worst of plagues, the detested TEA, shipped for
this port by the East India Company, is now arrived in this
harbor. The hour of destruction, or manly opposition to
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION. 47
this summons, and the meeting was obliged to adjourn to the Old South.
Boston, it was said, had never seen so large a gathering.1 It was unani-
mously resolved, upon the motion of Samuel Adams, that the tea should
be sent back, and that no duty should be paid on it. " The only way to
get rid of it," said Young, " is to throw it overboard." At an adjourned
meeting in the afternoon, Mr. Rotch entered his protest against the pro-
ceedings; but the meeting, without a dissenting voice, passed the signifi-
cant vote that if Mr. Rotch entered the tea he would do so at his peril.
Captain Hall was also cautioned not to allow any of the tea to be landed.
To guard the ship during the night, a volunteer watch of twenty-five persons
was appointed, under Captain Edward Proctor. " Out of great tenderness"
to the consignees, the meeting adjourned to Tuesday morning, to allow fur-
ther time for consultation. The answer, which was given jointly, then was
that it was not in the power of the consignees to send the tea back ; but
they were ready to store it till they could hear from their constituents.
Before action could be taken on this reply, Greenleaf, the Sheriff of Suffolk,
entered with a proclamation from the Governor, charging the inhabitants
with violating the good and wholesome laws of the province, and " warning,
exhorting, and requiring them, and each of them there unlawfully assembled,
forthwith to disperse." 2 This communication was received with hisses and
a unanimous vote not to disperse. At this juncture, Copley the artist, son-
in-law of Clarke, tendered his services as mediator between the people and
the consignees, and was allowed two hours for the purpose ; but after going
to the Castle he returned with a report which was voted to be " not in the
least degree satisfactory." In the afternoon, Rotch and Hall, yielding to
the demands of the hour, agreed that the tea should return, without touching
land or paying duty. A similar promise was obtained from the owners of
two other tea-ships, which were daily expected ; and resolutions were passed
against such merchants as had even " inadvertently " imported tea while
subject to duty. Armed patrols were appointed for the night ; and six post-
riders were selected to alarm the neighboring towns, if necessary. A report
of the proceedings of the meeting was officially transmitted to every seaport
in Massachusetts; also to New York and Philadelphia, and to England.3
In a short time the other tea-ships, the " Eleanor" and the "Beaver,"
arrived and, by order of the committee, were moored near the " Dartmouth"
at Griffin's Wharf,4 that one guard might answer for all. Under the revenue
laws the ships could not be cleared in Boston with the tea on board, nor
the machinations of tyranny, stares you in the face. Every 1 Jonathan Williams was chosen moderator ;
friend to his country, to himself and posterity, is now called and the business of the meeting was conducted
upon to meet at Faneuil Hall at nine o'clock THIS DAY (at ... . .. •»«• v j
which time the bells will ring), to make a united and sue- bX Adams» Hancock, Young, Mol.neux, and
cessful resistance to this last, worst, and most destructive Warren.
measure of Administration." 2 Hutchinson, Massachusetts Bay, lii. 432.
Boston Gazette, Nov. 29, 1773; Wells's Life 8 For accounts of this meeting see Boston
of S. Adams, ii. no. [The original draft of the Post-Boy, News-Letter, and especially the Gazette
call to the committees of the neighboring towns, for Dec. 6, 1773.
in Warren's hand, is owned by Mr. Bancroft. 4 Now Liverpool Wharf, near the foot of
Frothingham's Warren, p. 255. — ED.] Pearl Street.
48 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
could they be entered in England ; and, moreover, on the twentieth day from
their arrival they would be liable to seizure. Whatever was done, therefore,
must be done soon. The Patriot leaders were all sincerely anxious to have
the tea returned to London peaceably, and they left nothing undone to
accomplish this object. On the eleventh of December the owner of the
" Dartmouth " was summoned before the committee, and asked why he had
not kept his agreement to send his ship back with the tea. He replied that
it was out of his power to do so. "The ship must go," was the answi-r.
"The people of Boston and the neighboring towns absolutely require and
expect it." l Hutchinson, in the meantime, had taken measures to prevent
her sailing. No vessel was allowed to put to sea without his permit ; the
guns at the Castle were loaded, and Admiral Montagu had sent two war-
ships to guard the passages out of the harbor.
The committees of the towns were in session on the thirteenth. On the
fourteenth, two days before the time would expire, a meeting at the Old
South again summoned Rotch and enjoined upon him, at his peril, to apply
for a clearance. He did so, accompanied by several witnesses. The col-
lector refused to give his answer until the next day, and the meeting
adjourned to Thursday, the sixteenth, the last day of the twenty before con-
fiscation would be legal. For two days the Boston committee of corre-
spondence had been holding consultations of the greatest importance.
" That little body of stout-hearted men were making history that should endure for
ages. Their secret deliberations, could they be exhumed from the dust of time, would
present a curious page in the annals of Boston ; but the seal of silence was upon the
pen of the secretary, as well as upon the lips of the members." 2
On Wednesday Rotch was again escorted to the Custom House, where
both the collector and the comptroller " unequivocally and finally " refused
to grant the " Dartmouth " a clearance unless her teas were discharged.
Thursday, December 16, came at last, — dies irae, dies ilia ! — and Boston
calmly prepared to meet the issue. At ten o'clock the Old South was filled
from an outside assemblage that included two thousand people from the sur-
rounding country. Rotch appeared and reported that a clearance had been
denied him. He was then directed as a last resort to protest at once against
the decision of the Custom House, and apply to the Governor for a passport
to go by the Castle. Hutchinson, evidently anticipating such an emergency,
had found it convenient to be at his country-seat on Milton Hill,3 where it
would require considerable time to reach him. Rotch was instructed to
make all haste, and report to the meeting in the afternoon. At three o'clock
the number of people in and around the Old South was estimated at seven
thousand, — by far the largest gathering ever seen in Boston. Addresses
1 Bancroft, vi. 482. as Hutchinson's country-seat, «is not Hutchin-
2 Wells's Life of Samuel Adams, ii. 119. son's house but another on Milton Hill. The
8 [The mansion which is delineated in Bryant true house was taken down not long since.—
and Gay's History of the United States, iii. 372, ED.]
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION.
49
were made by Samuel Adams, Young, Rowe, Ouincy,1 and others. "Who
knows," said Rowe, " how tea will mingle with salt water ? " a suggestion
which was received with loud applause.2 When the question was finally put
to the vast assembly it was unanimously resolved that the tea should not be
landed. It was now getting darker and darker, and the meeting-house could
only be dimly lighted with a few candles ; yet the people all remained, know-
ing that the great question must soon be decided. About six o'clock Rotch
appeared and reported that he had waited on the Governor, but could not
obtain a pass, as his vessel was not duly qualified. No sooner had he con-
cluded than Samuel Adams arose and said : " This meeting can do nothing
more to save the country." 3 Instantly a shout was heard at the porch ; the
war-whoop resounded, and a band of forty or fifty men, disguised as Indians,
rushed by the door and hurried down toward the harbor,4 followed by
a throng of people ; guards were carefully posted, according to previous
arrangements, around Griffin's wharf to prevent the intrusion of spies. The
" Mohawks," and some others accompanying them, sprang aboard the three
tea-ships and emptied the contents of three hundred and forty-two chests of
tea into the bay, "without the least injury to the vessels or any other prop-
erty." No one interfered with them ; no person was harmed ; no tea was
allowed to be carried away. There was no confusion, no noisy riot, no
1 [The speech which Josiah Quincy, Jr. de-
livered at this meeting, Dec. 16, 1773, together
with one of Otis in 1767, are the only reports at
any length of all the speeches made in Boston pub-
lic meetings from 1768 to 1775. Frothingham's
Warren, p. 39. Quincy's Life of Josiah Quincy,
Jr., 2d ed. p. 124. Mr. Quincy's speech is pre-
served only in a letter which, after he had gone to
England, he wrote to his wife from London, Dec.
14, 1774, and the words given by Gordon were
copied from the manuscript still existing. It
counselled moderation. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc.,
Dec. 16, 1873, Mr. Waterston's address. — ED.]
2 Miles, Principles and Acts of t lie Revolution,
pp. 485, 486.
3 Francis Rotch's information before the
privy council. [The moderator of this meeting
was William Phillips Savage. His portrait is
owned by Mr. G. H. Emery. The original min-
utes, in the hand of William Cooper, of the meet-
ings from Nov. 29, 1773, are preserved among
the papers in the Charity Building. They show
the names of the watch of twenty-five men, under
Captain Proctor, who were to guard the ships
that night ; and later each successive watch was
empowered to appoint its successors for the fol-
lowing night. The.final report of Mr. Rotch is
entered in the minutes for December 16, as
follows : —
" Mr. Rotch attended and informed that he
had demanded a pass for his vessel of the Gov-
ernor, who answered that he was willing to grant
anything consistent with the laws and his duty to
VOL. in. — 7.
the King, but that he could not give a pass un-
less the vessel was properly qualified from the
Custom House ; that he should make no distinc-
tion between this and any other vessel, provided
she was properly cleared.
" Mr. Rotch was then asked whether he would
send his vessel back with the tea under her pres-
ent circumstances; he answered that he could
not possibly comply, as he apprehended it would
be to his risk. He was further asked whether he
would land the tea ; he answered he had no busi-
ness with it unless he was properly called upon
to do it, when he should attempt a compliance
for his own security.
" Voted, that this meeting be dissolved ; and
it was accordingly dissolved."
Here the minutes end, the remaining leaves
of the book being blank. — ED.]
4 [The conclave which had decided upon this
movement had been held in the back office of
Edes & Gill's printing house, on the site of the
present Daily Advertiser building. A room over
the office was often the meeting place of the Pa-
triots, and the frequenters got to be known as
the Long-Room Club. Drake, Landmarks, p.
81. There is some reason to believe that this
was the office of Josiah Quincy, Jr. A letter
about the punch-bowl used by the Patriots be-
fore going to the wharf is given in Mass. Hist.
Soc. Proc., December, 1871. Lossing, Field- Book
of the Revolution, \. 499, gives the portrait of
David Kinnison, the last survivor of the " Mo-
hawks." — ED.]
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
infuriated mob. The multitude stood by and looked on in solemn silence
while the weird-looking figures,1 made distinctly visible in the moonlight,
removed the hatches, tore open the chests, and threw the entire cargo
overboard. This strange spectacle lasted about three hours, and then
the people all went home and the town was as quiet as if nothing had
happened. The next day fragments of the tea were seen strewn along
the Dorchester shore, carried thither by the wind and tide.2 A formal
declaration of the transaction was drawn up by the Boston committee ;
and Paul Revere was sent with despatches to New York and Philadelphia,
where the news was received with the greatest demonstrations of joy.3 In
Boston the feeling was that of intense satisfaction proceeding from the con-
sciousness of having exhausted every possible measure of legal redress
before undertaking this bold and novel mode of asserting the rights of the
people.4 " We do console ourselves," said John Scollay, one of the select-
men, and an actor in the scene, "that we have acted constitutionally."5
"This is the most magnificent movement of all," said John Adams.6 "There
1 The names of the actors in this scene, as
well as of those who planned it, were not di-
vulged till after the Revolutionary War. It is
supposed that about one hundred and forty per-
sons were engaged in it. [The " Dartmouth's "
journal says one thousand people came on the
wharf. The party actually boarding the ships
has been estimated from seventeen to thirty, the
former number being all that have been identi-
fied. See Frothingham in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc.,
Dec. 16, 1873, xyho thinks that the list given in
Hewes's book is not accurate as respects those
who boarded the ships. " Several of the party
have been identified, but the claims presented
for others are doubtful." John Adams refused
to have the names given him. ( Works, ii. 334.)
Captain Henry Purkitt, who is called the last
survivor of the party, died March 3, 1846, aged
ninety-one. As to Hewes, see also Loring's Hun-
dred Boston Orators, p. 554. — ED.]
2 Barry, ii. 473. [A small quantity of it is
preserved in a phial in the Mass. Hist. Society's
cabinet. Thomas Newell records in his diary,
Jan. I, 1774: "Last evening a number of per-
sons went over to Dorchester and brought from
thence part of a chest of tea, and burnt it in our
Common the same evening." A fourth vessel of
the tea-fleet was wrecked on the back side of
Cape Cod. The Boston committee immediately
sent a message in that direction. " The people
of the Cape will we hope behave with propriety,
and as becomes men re-
solved to serve their
country." We next hear
of this tea in a letter
from Samuel Adams to
James Warren, Jan. 10,
1774. "The tea which
was cast on shore at the
Cape has been brought up, and after much con-
sultation landed at Castle William, the safe asy-
lum for our inveterate enemies. ... It is said
that the Indians this way, if they had suspected
the Marshpee tribe would have been so sick at
the knee, would have marched on snow-shoes to
have done the business for them." It seems
that Clarke, one of the consignees, had despatched
a lighter and brought the chests off. Mass.
Hist. Soc. Proc., Dec. 16, 1873. Vessels subse-
quently arriving were examined ; and in March,
1774, twenty-eight and a half chests were simi-
larly disposed of by similar " Indians." — ED.]
3 [Revere returned from this mission Decem-
ber 27 ; and bringing word that Governor Tryon
had engaged to send the New York tea-ships
back, all the Boston bells were rung the next
morning. Thomas ATewelFs Diary. — ED.]
4 " Fast spread the tempest's darkening pall ;
The mighty realms were troubled ;
The storm broke loose, but first of all
The Boston teapot bubbled.
" The lurid morning shall reveal
A fire no king can smother,
When British flint and Boston steel,
Have clashed against each other ! "
O. W. HOLMES.
5 Letter to Arthur Lee, Dec. 23, 1773.
6 Diary, Dec. 17, 1773. [Two pages of this
diary, of which the accompanying fac-simile is a
<-t/f. 11
//
•//
*+ 3
./«*,
V
< A'c
/
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION.
is a dignity, a majesty, a sublimity, in this last effort of the Patriots that I
greatly admire." *
The blow was now struck ; the deed was done ; and there was no re-
treat. The enemies of liberty talked of treason, arrests, and executions ;
but the Patriots almost everywhere rejoiced, and pledged themselves to
support the common cause. Independence was now openly advocated ;
a congress was called for; and "Union" was the cry from New Eng-
land to Carolina.2
When the news of the destruction of the tea reached England it pro-
duced a profound sensation, both in Government circles and among the
people. Coercion was at once resolved upon as the only means of check-
fragment, are given in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc.,
Dec. 16, 1873. — ED.]
1 Charles Waterton, the enterprising travel-
ler and naturalist, of Walton Hall, Wakefield,
Yorkshire, makes a humorous reference to the
Tea-Party, in his autobiography, written between
1812 and 1824 : " It is but some forty years ago
our western brother had a dispute with his nurse
about a cup of tea. She wanted to force the boy
to drink it according to her own receipt. He
said he did not like it, and that it absolutely
made him ill. After a good deal of sparring,
she took up the birch rod and began to whip
him with uncommon severity. He turned upon
her in self-defence, showed her to the outside
of the nursery door, and never more allowed her
to meddle with his affairs."
- [Among the contemporary sources for the
understanding of these transactions may be named
the following: G. R. T. Hewes, who was one of
the participants, with the aid of B. B. Thacher,
prepared Traits of the Tea-Party, N. Y. 1835
(see also Retrospect of the Boston Tea- Party -with
a Memoir of Haves, by a citizen of New York,
N. Y. 1834. Brinley Catalogue, Nos. 1681 and
1682) ; and in this book the names of fifty-eight
actors in the scene are given. The names in-
scribed on the monument of Captain Peter
Slater (who was one of the party) in Hope
Cemetery, New Worcester, are sixty-three in
number. Both lists include Moses Grant, Wil-
liam Molineaux, Paul Revere, G. T. R. Hewes,
Thomas Melville, Samuel Sprague, Jonathan
Hunnewell, John Prince, John Russell. (Massa-
chusetts Spy, Dec. 16, 1873.) Sprague was the
father of Charles Sprague; Russell was the
father of Benjamin Russell. Hewes lived at
the Bull's Head, an old house on the northeast
corner of Water and Congress streets. He died
Nov. 5, 1840, at ninety-eight. There are let-
ters from Boston in 4 Mass. Hist. Coll. iv. 373 ;
as also the examination of Dr. Williamson be-
fore the King's council, Feb. 19, 1774. A paper,
"Information of Hugh Williamson" is in the
Sparks MSS. Admiral Montagu, writing Dec.
J7> !773> to the Lords of the Admiralty, says he
was never called upon for assistance, and he
could easily have prevented the execution of the
plan; and the Evening Post, May 16, 1774, ven-
tured from the admiral's admission to draw the
conclusion that Hutchinson and his party con-
nived at the business. The first accounts received
in England are given in the Gentleman'1 s Magazine,
1774, p. 26. An account is in the Boston Gazette,
Dec. 20, 1773, or Buckingham's Reminiscences, i.
169; a contemporary record in Andrews's let-
ters in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1865, p. 325 ; Thomas
Newell's Diary in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., October,
1877; contemporary verses in Mag. of Amer.
History, March, 1880; Hutchinson's narrative is
in his Massachusetts Bay, iii. 430. Hutchinson's
papers in the State House throw much light on
these disturbed times, and some of his letters are
copied by Frothingham in his paper in the Mass.
Hist. Soc. Proc., December, 1873. His interview
with the king, July i, 1774, after his return to
England, as reported in his journal, and covering
these transactions, has only of late years been
made public. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., October,
1877, p. 326. Other contemporary documents
will be found in Force's American Archives, i. ;
Niles's Principles and Acts of the Revolution ;
Franklin's Works, viii. ; John Adams's Works, ii.
323, 334, and ix. 333. An appeal of " Scaevola "
to the commissioners appointed for the sale of tea
in America was printed as a broadside, and a copy
is in the Sparks MSS. xlix. vol. ii. p. 115. Of
the eclectic later accounts the fullest is in Froth-
ingham's Life of Warren, ch. ix. ; and in his paper
in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., Dec. 16, 1873, where will
be found the contributions of others to that com-
memorative occasion. See also Bancroft, vi. ch. 1. ;
Barry, Massachusetts, ii. ch. xiv. and xv. ; Wells's
Sam. Adams, ii. ; Tudor's Otis, ch. xxi. ; Snow's
Boston ; Niles's Register, 1827, p. 75; Lossing's
Field-Book ; and Harper's Monthly, iv. Also
James Kimball in Essex Institute Proceedings.
The English writers are May's Constitutional
History of England, ii. 521; Massey's England,
ii. ch. xviii. ; Fitzmaurice's Shelburne, ii. ; Mac-
knight's Burke, ii ch. xx. ; and the usual general
historians. — ED.)
52 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
ing the unruly and defiant spirit which had become dominant in Boston.
On March 7 the King, in addressing Parliament, accused the Americans of
attempting to injure British commerce and to subvert its constitution.
The message was accompanied with a mass of papers and letters.1 Lord
North demanded additional powers in order to re-establish peace. The
question at issue, it was said, was whether the colonies were or were not
the colonies of Great Britain. If they were, they should be held firmly;
if they were not, they should be released. Upon this question there was,
just at this time, great unanimity in England. The authority of the Crown,
it was urged, must be maintained at all hazards. Any act in violation of
that must be punished. Even the party in opposition yielded much upon
this point. Thus the ministry were fully prepared to introduce the most
pronounced penal measures; and on the eighteenth, Lord North, disre-
garding constitutional forms, which forbid that any should be condemned
unheard, brought in the famous Boston Port Bill, — a measure for suspend-
ing the trade and closing the harbor of Boston during the king's pleasure,
and enforcing the act by the joint operations of an army and a fleet.2 The
bill was stoutly opposed by Burke, Barre, Dowdeswell, Pownall, and others;
but in two weeks it passed through the various stages and was carried
without a division in the Commons, and unanimously in the Lords, and
became a law March 31 by the royal assent. This act was to go into effect
on the first day of June. It took away from Boston the privilege of land-
ing and discharging, as well as of loading and shipping, all goods, wares,
and merchandise.3 It constituted Marblehead a port of entry, and Salem
the seat of government. As if this were not enough, Lord North now
brought in within a month a series of measures, compared with which all
that had gone before was mild and legitimate. The ministry seemed de-
termined to wreak their vengeance upon the devoted head of Massachu-
setts ; and nothing was too arbitrary, radical, or revolutionary for them to
recommend. Up to this point there might have been a way of reconcili-
ation. The cruel and exasperating Port Bill would probably have been
withdrawn upon certain easy and perhaps reasonable conditions. The tea-
tax and its preamble, which gave such offence to the colonists, might have
been repealed; indeed an attempt to do so was made on April 19, when
Edmund Burke made his ever memorable speech.4 But when the penal
1 These letters were from Hutchinson and Court, Temple, is in the Lee Papers, University
other royal governors, and from Admiral Mon- of Virginia. — ED.]
tagu and the consignees of the tea, accom- 2 "The offence of the Americans," it was
panied by a large number of pamphlets, mani- said in the course of the debate, "is flagitious,
festoes, handbills, etc., issued in the colonies. The town of Boston ought to be knocked about
[The king and council had already, Feb. 7, their ears and destroyed. Delenda est Carthago.
1774, considered the petition of the House of You will never meet with proper obedience to
Representatives for the removal of Hutchinson the laws of this country until you have de-
and Oliver, and had dismissed the charges " as stroyed that nest of locusts." — Mass. Gazette,
groundless, vexatious, and scandalous, and cal- May 19, 1774.
culated only for the seditious purpose of keep- 8 [See Sargent's Dealings with the Dead, \.
ing up a spirit of clamour and discontent." The 1 53. — ED.]
official copy sent to Arthur Lee, No. 3 Garden * Works, Boston, 1865, vol. ii. p. i.
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION. 53
measures, commonly known as the Regulation or Reconstructive Acts,
were passed, a fatal blow was struck at the American system of local self-
government, and the conflict was beyond recall.
These acts, which passed in rapid succession during the month of April,
were for the purpose of " regulating the government of the Province of
Massachusetts Bay." ] The speech of Lord George Germain, on the intro-
duction of the bill, shows how sadly ignorance concerning America, and
contempt for her institutions, had pervaded England at this time. Speak-
ing of North's plan to punish the people of Massachusetts, he said : —
" Nor can I think he will do a better thing than to put an end to their town-
meetings. I would not have men of a mercantile cast every day collecting them-
selves together and debating about political matters. I would have them follow their
occupations as merchants, and not consider themselves as ministers of that country.
... I would wish to see the Council in that country similar to the House of Lords
in this. . . . The whole are the proceedings of a tumultuous and riotous rabble, who
ought, if they had the least prudence, to follow their mercantile employments, and not
trouble themselves with politics and government which they do not understand."
When he had finished this remarkable speech, Lord North arose and
said : " I thank the noble lord for every proposition he has held out. They
are worthy of a great mind, and such as ought to be adopted." 2
For the purpose of strengthening the executive authority, these Regula-
tion Acts, without giving any hearing to the Province, provided, —
1. In total viojation of the charter, that the councillors who had been
chosen hitherto by the Legislature should be appointed by the king, and
hold at his pleasure. The superior judges were to hold at the will of the
king, and be dependent upon him for their salaries ; and the inferior
judges were to be removable at the discretion of the royal governor. The
sheriffs were to be appointed and removed by the executive ; and the juries
were to be selected by the dependent sheriffs. Town-meetings were to be
abolished, except for the election of officers, o'r by the special permission of
the Governor. This bill passed by a vote of more than three to one.
2. Magistrates, revenue officers, and soldiers, charged with capital of-
fences, could be tried in England or Nova Scotia. This bill passed by
a vote of more than four to one.
3. A military act provided for the quartering of troops upon the
towns.3
These oppressive edicts, said the Massachusetts committee in their cir-
cular, were only what might have been expected from a Parliament claim-
ing 4 the right to make laws binding the colonies " in all cases whatsoever."
1 [The debates are given in 4 Force's Ameri- don, American Revolution, \. 232-235. Mahon,
can Archives, i. — ED.] History of England, vi. 5, 6. Bancroft, vi. 525,
2 Parliamentary History, xvii. pp. 1192-1195. 526. Frothingham, Rise of the Republic, pp. 345-
Also Boston newspapers of May 19 and 23, 347. Dana, Oration at Lexington, April 19, 1875.
1774. 4 In the declaratory act. See earlier in this
3 Boston Post-Boy, June 6 and 13, 1774. Gor- chapter.
54 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
The news of the Port Act created, as may well be supposed, the greatest
indignation in the colonies ; but Boston stood firm, and the other seaports
refused to profit by her patriotic sufferings.
In May Hutchinson was recalled, to the great relief of the people of the
province; and Thomas Gage, Commander-in-chief of the continent, was
appointed also Governor of Massachusetts. In all the political agitations
in the colonies thus far, Gage had behaved so discreetly as an officer that
he enjoyed a considerable share of public confidence. After a lengthy in-
terview with his predecessor at Castle William, he landed at Long Wharf,
on May 17, saluted by the ships and batteries, and received by the civil
officers of the province. The cadets, under Colonel Hancock, performed
escort duty, and the council presented a loyal address at the State House.1
A public dinner followed at Faneuil Hall.2 Undoubtedly this welcome
given to Gage was owing, in part, to the delight of the people at the re-
tirement of Hutchinson.3 But it soon appeared that the new Governor,
with many excellent traits, was not the man to reconcile or to subdue, if
indeed any such man could have been found in the whole British service
at this critical moment. It devolved upon Gage to close the port of Bos-
ton and to enforce the measures of the odious Regulation Acts. The
blockade of the harbor began on the first day of June, after which all inter-
course by water, even among the nearest islands or from pier to pier, was
rigidly forbidden. Not a ferry could ply to Charlestown, nor a scow to
Dorchester. Warehouses were at once useless, wharves deserted, and or-
dinary business prostrated. All classes felt the scourge of the oppressor;
yet there was no regret at the position which the town had deliberately
taken in defence of its constitutional rights. These were dearer to the in-
habitants than property or peace or even life itself, as was shortly to be
proved. Expressions of sympathy poured in from all quarters. Supplies
of food and money were generously sent from the other colonies as well
as from the neighboring towns.4 Salem and Marblehead scorned to profit
1 ["The Town House is fitted up in the most 4 [There are at the City Hall various lists of
elegant manner, with the whole of the outside donations received at this time, with the records
painted of a stone color, which gives it a fine of the donation committee. See Vol. I. p. xx.
appearance." — June, 1773, in Mass. Hist. Soc. The correspondence of this committee is in 4
Proc., July, 1865, p. 324. Hancock had the pre- Mass. Hist. Coll., iv. Colonel A. H. Hoyt has
vious March, 1774, delivered the usual Massacre given an account of these gifts in the N. E. Hist.
oration, which in the opinion of some was writ- and Geneal. Reg., July, 1876. A subscription-
ten by Samuel Adams. John Adams's Works, list of contributions raised in Virginia in 1774,
ii. 332; Wells's S. Adams. — ED.| for the "distressed inhabitants of Boston," is
2 [Gage at this " elegant entertainment gave printed in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., Decem-
' Governor Hutchinson ' as a toast, which was re- ber, 1857. When the Marbleheaders sent in
ceived by a general hiss." — Mass. Hist. Soc. provisions for the Boston poor, they were re-
Proc., 1865, p. 328. — En.] fused passage for them by water, and an expensive
8 [The friends of Hutchinson and the pre- land-carriage of twenty-eight miles was rendered
rogative made themselves conspicuous by an ad- necessary, as even a ferry passage was refused,
dress on his leaving the province, and a list of Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1865,1?. 336. Benefactors
the "addressers" is given in Mass. Hist. Soc. in South Carolina and Connecticut were equally
Proc., October, 1870. — ED.] compelled to pay for a land passage. — ED.]
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION. 55
by the sufferings of Boston, and offered the free use of their wharves and
stores.1
The committee of correspondence assumed with much ability the ar-
duous and responsible task of guiding public affairs at this crisis. " A
solemn league and covenant " to suspend all commercial intercourse with
England, and forego the use of all British merchandise, was forwarded to
every town in the province ; and the names of those who refused to sign it
were to be published. The first act of the Legislature at Salem was to
protest against the illegal order for its removal. The House of Represen-
tatives was the fullest ever known in the country, one hundred and twenty-
nine being present. It was for them to fix the time and place for the
proposed meeting of the Continental Congress, for which Samuel Adams
and his coadjutors were diligently laboring.2 While they were sitting with
closed doors a message came from the Governor dissolving the Assembly,
but not until its important work had been done.3 Baffled in his purposes
and chagrined at the success of the Patriots, Gage, without consulting the
council, issued his foolish and malignant proclamation against the com-
bination not to purchase British goods. He denounced it as " unwarrant-
able, hostile, and traitorous ; " its subscribers as " open and declared enemies
of the King and Parliament;" and he "enjoined and commanded all ma-
gistrates and other officers ... to apprehend and secure for trial all
persons who might publish or sign, or invite others to sign, the covenant."
It was known that the Governor was endeavoring to fasten charges of
rebellion upon several of the popular leaders, in order to secure their ar-
rest; but his plans did not succeed.
In August the Regulation Acts were officially received by Gage and
immediately put into effect, sweeping away the long cherished Charter of
Massachusetts, and precipitating the irreversible choice between submis-
sion and resistance. Samuel Adams wrote: 4 —
" Boston suffers with dignity. If Britain by her multiplied oppressions accelerates
the independency of her colonies, whom will she have to blame but herself? It is
1 [In 1774 John Kneeland printed at Boston of the prevailing feeling is found in Andrews's
a part of Thomas Prince's sermon on the de- letters. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1865^.327. —
structionof D'Anville's fleet in 1746, "with a view ED.]
to encourage and animate the people of God to * [C. M. Endicott's Leslie's Retreat, p. 9. —
put their trust in him, under the severe and ED.]
keen distresses now taking place, by the rigor- 3 The Congress was appointed to meet in
ous execution of the Port Kill." Ellis Gray, September, at Philadelphia, and the Massachu-
writing from Boston at this time to a friend in setts delegates were Bowdoin (who, however,
Jamaica, somewhat drolly apologizes for his could not attend), Samuel Adams, John Adams,
slack correspondence on the ground that he Gushing, and Robert Treat Paine. [This Con-
lived "seventeen miles from a sea-port," — re- gress sat in Philadelphia from September 5 to
ferring to Salem and Marblehead. See Mass. October 26. The idea of it is said to have
Hist. Soc. Proc , March, 1876, p. 315. The Royal originated with Franklin. Its proceedings, is-
Amer. Mag., June, 1774, has one of Revere 's sued in Philadelphia, were at once reprinted in
satires on the Port Bill, in "The Able Doctor, or Boston. Numerous references are given in
America swallowing the bitt?r Draught." The Winsor's Handbook, pp. 16-19. — ED.]
same magazine for May contains the act for * Letters to William Checkley and Charles
blockading the port of Boston. An expression Thomson, June I and 2, 1774.
56 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
a consolatory thought that an empire is rising in America. . . . Our people think
they should pursue the line of the Constitution as far as they can ; and if they are
driven from it they can with propriety and justice appeal to God and to the world.
. . . Nothing is more foreign to our hearts than a spirit of rebellion. Would to God
they all, even our enemies, knew the warm attachment we have for Great Britain,
notwithstanding we have been contending these ten years with them for our rights ! "
That attachment was ruthlessly severed by the operation of the new acts.
" \Ve were not the revolutionists," says Mr. Dana.1 " The King and Parlia-
ment were the revolutionists. They were the radical innovators. We were
the conservators of existing institutions. They were seeking to overthrow
and reconstruct on a theory of parliamentary omnipotence. . . . We broke
no chain."
Boston was now occupied by a large military force. The Fourth, Fifth,
Thirty-eighth, and Forty-third regiments, together with twenty-two pieces
of cannon and three companies of artillery, were encamped on the Common.2
The Welsh Fusileers were encamped on Fort Hill, and several companies
of the Sixty-fourth were at Castle William, where most of the powder and
other stores had been removed from New York. The Fifty-ninth was en-
camped at Salem, to protect the meetings of the new mandamus council ;
and two companies of the Sixty-fourth were at Danvers, to cover the Govern-
or's residence.3 The camp at Boston was, in the absence of Gage, under
command of Earl Percy, who had recently arrived with Colonels Pigott and
Jones. Lord Percy describes the situation with some minuteness in his
letters written to friends in England at this time:4 —
" The people, by all accounts, are extremely violent and wrong-headed ; so much
so that I fear we shall be obliged to come to extremities." " One thing I will be bold
1 Oration at Lexineton, April IO, 1875. "And over a" the 0Pen preen
„ ,,.. ,. , , T> • • L Where crazed <>l late the harmless kine,
- [We get a glimpse of the British camp at The cannon-s deepening ruts are seen,
this time in the privately printed Memoir and The war-horse stamps, the bayonets shine."
Letters of Captain W. Glanville Evelyn of the John Andrews, writing of the delegation to
Fourth Regiment ("King's Ckvn"), which was the Congress of September, 1774, says: "Robert
printed in 1879 at Oxford, edited by G. D. Scull. Treat Paine set out with the committee this
This officer joined his regiment in June, 1774, and morning [Aug. 10]. They made a very respect-
wrote home sundry letters here preserved, in able parade in sight of five of the regiments
which the provincials appear as " rascals and encamped on the Common ; being in a coach
poltroons." In December he was quartered in a and four, preceded by two white servants well
house, and, having "laid in a good stock of Port mounted and armed, with four blacks behind in
and Madeira, hoped to spend the winter as well livery, two on horseback and two footmen." —
as our neighbors." He speaks of Sam Adams Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., July, 1865, p. 339. — En.|
" as moving and directing this immense conti- 8 [Here, at the country residence of Robert
nent, — a man of ordinary birth and desperate Hooper, " King Hooper "of Marblehead, Gage
fortune, who, by his abilities and talent for fac- had his headquarters for a while, Salem being
tious intrigue, has made himself of some conse- then, under the Port Bill, the capital. On Aug.
quence; whose political existence depends upon 27, 1774, Gage left Danvers and moved his
the continuance of the present dispute, and who headquarters to Boston, and the Fifty-ninth
must sink into insignificancy and beggary the and Sixty-fourth regiments soon followed him,
moment it ceases " (p. 46). " Hancock is a poor the former taking post on Boston Neck to
contemptible fool, led about by Adams." Dr. throw up entrenchments there. — ED.]
Holmes draws the picture of the Common at 4 Private letters in possession of his Grace
this time : — the Duke of Northumberland, and copied, by
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION. 57
to say, which is, that till you make their committees of correspondence and con-
gresses with the other colonies high treason, and try them for it in England, you never
must expect perfect obedience from this to the mother country." " This is the most
beautiful country I ever saw in my life, and if the people were only like it we should
do very well. Everything, however, is as yet quiet, but they threaten much. Not
that I believe they dare act." " We have at last got the new acts, and twenty-six of
the new council have accepted and are sworn in ; but for my own part, I doubt
whether they will be more active than the old ones. Such a set of timid creatures I
never did see. Those of the new council that live at any distance from town have
remained here ever since they took the oaths, and are, I am told, afraid to go home
again. As for the opposite party, they are arming and exercising all over the country.
. . . Their method of eluding that part of the act which relates to the town-meetings
is strongly characteristic of the people. They say that since the town-meetings are
forbid by the act, they shall not hold them ; but as they do not see any mention made
of county meetings, they shall hold them for the future. They therefore go a mile out
of town, do just the same business there they formerly did in Boston, call it a county
meeting, and so elude the act.1 In short, I am certain that it will require a great
length of time, much steadiness, and many troops, to re-establish good order and gov-
ernment. I plainly foresee that there is not a new councillor or magistrate who will
dare to act without at least a regiment at his heels ; and it is not quite clear to me
that he will even act then as he ought to do." " The delegates from this province are
set out (August 21) to meet the General Congress at Philadelphia. They talk much
of non-importation, and an agreement between the colonies. ... I flatter myself,
however, that instead of agreeing to anything, they will all go by the ears together at
this Congress. If they don't, there will be more work cut out for administration in
America than perhaps they are aware of."
It soon appeared that the new acts were powerless to accomplish the end
contemplated by the Government. With all the support furnished by a royal
governor, royal judges, and a royal army, the courts could not sit, jurors would
not serve, and the people would not obey. Sheriffs were timid, councillors
resigned their places and soldiers deserted. Meanwhile the colonists were
busy, maturing their plans in clubs, caucuses, and conventions. Whether
these were legal or illegal under the new act, they did not stop to inquire.
permission, by the present writer. Hugh Earl ment until the year 1786, when he succeeded his
.Percy was born August 25, 1742. In early life father as Duke of Northumberland. For many
he adopted the military profession, and served years his time was chiefly employed in improving
under Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick in the his princely estates. During the war with France,
Seven Years' War. He arrived in Boston July 5, he raised from among his tenantry a corps of
1774, with the Fifth Regiment of foot, and re- fifteen hundred men, called the "Percy Yeo-
mained in the service in this country until May manry," the whole corps being paid, clothed, and
3, 1777, when he returned to England with the maintained by himself. He was a Knight of the
rank of lieut.-general in North America. He Garter, a member of several learned societies,
was especially prominent at Lexington, and in and the recipient of many of the highest hon-
the attack on Fort Washington, at King's Bridge, ors of the realm. He died at Northumberland
Soon after his return to England, he was selected House, London, July 10, 1817, in the seventy-
to head a commission to offer terms of concilia- fifth year of his age, and was buried in St.
tion to Congress ; but, owing to a division in the Nicholas Chapel, Westminster Abbey.
British Cabinet, Lord Percy declined the offer, J [This explains the somewhat strange appel-
and the project was abandoned. After this, he lation of the " Suffolk Resolves," mentioned
represented the city of Westminster in Parlia- later in the text. — ED.]
VOL. m. — 8.
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
No act of Parliament, they maintained, could impose restrictions upon, those
ancient and chartered rights which they had always enjoyed. With this
1 This cut follows an engraving by V. Green,
executed in London, in 1777, and measuring 18
X I2j^ inches. The plate was engraved from a
portrait presented by the Duke of Northumber-
land, July 30, 1776, to the magistrates of West-
minster, and placed in the council chamber of
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION.
59
conviction they had resisted the injustice of the Stamp Act and the Tea
Act, and they were not the men to yield now to a tyranny far greater than
either.
THE WARREN HOUSE IN ROXBURY.1
The Regulating Act had not been long in operation before the popular
resistance which it encountered found appropriate expression in the famous
Suffolk Resolves drawn up by Warren, who acted as a kind of director-gen-
eral during the absence of Samuel Adams at Philadelphia. These resolves,
their Guild Hall in commemoration of Lord Per-
cy's public services. The portrait was evidently
a duplicate of the one by Pompeio Battoni, now
at Alnwick Castle, a copy of which was made in
1879 by order of the present Duke and presented,
through the writer of this chapter, to the Town
of Lexington. Another likeness of Earl Percy,
taken later in life, may be seen with a brief ac-
count in Captain Evelyn's Memoir and Letters,
p. 127
1 [This cut follows a painting now owned by
the wife of Dr. Buckminster Brown, of Boston, a
descendant of General Warren. The house was
built in 1720 by Joseph Warren, the General's
grandfather. It was used as quarters for Colonel
David Brewer's regiment during the summer of
1775. The late Dr. John C. Warren acquired
the estate in 1805; and selling off all but the
house in 1833, he built, in 1846, the present stone
cottage on the site. (Life of Dr. John Warren,
ch. i.) In the old house (of which another view,
as well as one of the present cottage, is given
in Drake's Town of Roxbury, p. 213) Joseph
Warren was born, in 1741 ; but at this time he
lived on Hanover Street, where the American
House now stands, hiring the mansion house of
Joseph Green, which stood there. Mass. Hist.
Soc. Proc., 1875, p. 101. Ellis Ames, Esq., has
parts of Warren's day-book between January,
1771, and January, 1775, showing the extent of
his medical practice. Frothingham, Life of
Warrent p. 167. — ED.]
6o
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
nineteen in number,1 were adopted in September by the Suffolk convention,
which met first at Dedham,2 and then, by adjournment, at Milton.3 They
declared that the sovereign who breaks his compact with his subjects forfeits
their allegiance. They arraigned the unconstitutional acts of Parliament,
1 Given in Frothingham's Warren, pp. 365-
367, and Appendix i.
2 At the house of Richard Woodward.
8 At the house of Daniel Vose.
4 [This cut follows a painting by Copley, now
in the possession of Dr. Buckminster Brown, of
Boston, who kindly allowed it to be photographed
for the engraver's use. Perkins, in his Copley's
Life and Paintings, p. 115, says : " The canvas is
about five feet long by four wide, and the color-
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION.
61
and rejected all officers appointed under their authority. They directed
collectors of taxes to pay over no money to the royal treasurer. They
advised the towns to choose their officers of militia from the friends of the
people. They favored a Provincial Congress, and promised respect and
submission to the Continental Congress. They determined to act upon the
defensive as long as reason and self-preservation would permit, " but no
longer." They threatened to seize every Crown officer in the province as
hostages if the Governor should arrest any one for political reasons. They
ing is very beautiful. It was one of Copley's
last portraits before he left Boston for Europe
in 1774, and as a piece of artistic skill, as well
as for its historic interest, has been pronounced
by good judges to be one of the most valuable
of Copley's portraits in this country. It was
painted while General Warren was the presiding
officer of the Massachusetts Congress." The
sitter and the artist were intimate friends, and
the portrait was painted for General Warren's
children, and has always been in the possession
of some branch of the family. This portrait, with
that of Mrs. Warren, by the same artist, was
loaned to Mr. W. W. Corcoran for exhibition in
his gallery at Washington, D. C. There is ex-
tant a letter from Lord Lyndhurst in which he
makes inquiries respecting it, in reference, it is
supposed, to the possibility of securing it for an
English collection. These paintings have been in
Boston since the spring of 1876, and have never
before been reproduced. That of Mrs. Warren,
of the same size, was probably painted three or
four years previously. She died in 1773, at l^e
age of twenty-six.
The familiar engraved likeness of General
Warren, following another Copley, 29 x 24 inches,
in citizen's dress, showing one hand, was origi-
nally owned by General Arnold Welles who mar-
ried Warren's daughter, from whom it passed to
the late Dr. John C. Warren, and is now owned
by his grandson of the same name. Another half-
length by Copley, belonging to the city, is now in
the Art Museum. Early engravings of Warren
are to be found in the Impartial History of the
War, Boston edition (engraved by J. Norman,
full-length, and showing the battle of Bunker
Hill in the background), and in the Boston Maga-
zine, May, 1784, following Copley's picture and
engraved by J. Norman. A colored engraving
resembling Copley's likeness was also frequently
seen, and a copy is now preserved in the pavilion
on Bunker Hill. A portrait statue, based on
Copley's likeness, and executed by Henry Dexter,
was erected in this pavilion in 1857, when dedica-
tory services took place on the anniversary of
the battle, with an address by Edward Everett.
An engraving of the statue is given in the com-
memorative volume which was issued at the time
by the Bunker Hill Monument Association. See
also George Washington Warren's History of
the Bunker Hill Monument Association.
General Warren left four children, two sons
and two daughters. The sons died in early
manhood. One daughter married General Ar-
nold \Velles, of Boston, and died without chil-
dren. The second daughter was twice married :
first to Mr. Lyman, of Northampton, and sec-
ond to Judge Newcomb, of Greenfield, Mass.
This daughter died in 1826, leaving one son,
Joseph WTarren Newcomb, who had two chil-
dren, a son and daughter. The descendants of
General Warren now living are a great-grand-
daughter, who is married and lives in Boston,
and a great-great-grandson, who is a cadet at
West Point.
A sumptuous volume, Genealogy of Warren,
by Dr. John C. Warren, was printed in Boston,
in 1854, to show the connections of the Patriot
both in this country and presumably and pos-
sibly in England. For an account of the papers
of General Warren, see Life of John C. Warren,
i. 217. One of Pendleton's earliest lithographs
was of Warren's portrait, which appeared with
a memoir in the Boston Monthly Magazine, June,
1826.
Abigail Adams repeats a story of an intended
indignity to the body of Warren after his fall at
Bunker Hill, from which he was saved by his
Freemasonry affiliations. (Familiar Letters, p.
91.) On the repossession of Boston after the
siege, the body was exhumed from the spot where
he fell ; and after an oration pronounced over it
by Perez Morton (which was printed and is
quoted in Loring's Hundred Boston Orators, p.
127*), it was deposited in the Minot tomb in the
Granary Burying-ground; and in 1825 was re-
moved to a tomb beneath St. Paul's, whence,
at a later day, the remains were again removed
to Forest Hills cemetery. Shurtleff's Description
of Boston, p. 251. See an account of some relics
of Warren by J. S. Loring in the Hist. Mag., De-
cember, 1857. His sword is in the possession of
Dr. John Collins Warren. Mass. Hist. Soc. Free.,
September, 1866, p. 348. — ED.]
* Also reprinted in a Biographical Sketch of General
Joseph Warren, embracing his Boston Orations of 1772
and 1775 ; together with the Eulogy pronounced by Perez
Morton, in 1776. By a Bostonian. Boston : 1857.
62
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
also arranged a system of couriers to carry messages to town officers and
corresponding committees. They earnestly advocated the well known Amer-
ican principles of social order as the basis of all political action ; exhorted
all persons to abstain from riots and all attacks upon the property of any
person whatsoever; and urged their countrymen to convince their " enemies
that in a contest so important, in a cause so solemn, their conduct should
be such as to merit the approbation of the wise, and the admiration of the
brave and free of every age and of every country." For boldness and prac-
tical utility these resolves surpassed anything that had been promulgated
in America. They were sent by Paul Revere as a memorial to the Congress
at Philadelphia, where they were received with great applause, and recom-
mended to the whole country.
Gage, perceiving that the time for reasoning had passed, applied J for
more troops, seized the powder belonging to the Province,2 and began the
construction of fortifications on the Neck, near the Roxbury line, command-
ing the only land entrance which Boston had.3 Beyond the limits of Boston
1 [Correspondence of Gage at this time with
Lord Dartmouth is in the Muss. Hist. Soc. Proc.,
1876, p. 347. See also Life of Lord Barrington.
— ED.]
2 [On September i, 1774, Gage sent 260 sol-
diers, who embarked in boats at Long Wharf, to
seize the Province's store of powder, which was
kept in the old mill on the road from Winter Hill
to Arlington. William Brattle, at that time
commanding the Province militia, had instigated
the movement. It was successful, and the troops
returned bringing not only the powder, but two
field-pieces which they had seized in Cambridge.
This theft was soon avenged. An artillery com-
pany had been organized by Capt. David Mason
in 1763, and was known commonly as " the train,"
and attached to the Boston regiment. Its com-
mand had passed in 1768 to Lieutenant Adino
Paddock, who was a good drill master, and who
derived instruction himself from members of a
company of royal artillery stationed at the Castle ;
and the train became the school of many good offi-
cers of the Revolution. Paddock received tsvo
light brass field-pieces, and uniformed a number
of German emigrants in white frocks, hair caps,
and broadswords, to drag the cannon. These
pieces had, it is supposed, been cast in London for
the Province from some old cannon sent over for
the purpose, and they bore the Province arms.
They seem to have been first used when the king's
birthday was celebrated, June 4, 1768, in firing a
salute, when the train paraded with Colonel
Phips's governor's troop and Colonel Jackson's
regiment. At the outbreak of the war these
pieces were kept in a gun-house at the corner of
West Street ; and as Paddock adhered to the royal
cause, and might surrender them to Gage, they
were stealthily removed by some young Patriots
and, on a good opportunity, conveyed by boat to
the American camp, where they did good service
then and through the war ; and in 1788 Knox,
then secretary of war, had them inscribed with
the names of Hancock and Adams, and they now
may be seen in the summit-chamber of Bunker
Hill Monument. (Drake's Knox, p. 127.) The
young men who accomplished their removal were,
among others, Abraham Holbrook, Nathaniel
Balch, Samuel Gore, Moses Grant, and Jeremy
Gridley. (Tudor's Life of Otis, p. 452 ) Judge
Story's father was another. (Life and Letters of
Judge Story, \. 9. See also N. E. Hist, and Getieal.
Reg. yui. 139.) The commit-
tee of safety, Feb. 23, 1775,
instructed Dr. Warren to
ascertain what number of
Paddock's men could be de-
pended on. Drake, Cincin-
nati Society, p. 543, gives a
partial list of the train-mem-
bers, designating such as subsequently served in
the Patriot army. Paddock left Boston with
Gage, and died in the Isle of Jersey in 1804,
aged seventy-six. Mills and Hicks's Register,
1775, gives a statement of the Boston military
at this time. See Frothingham's Siege of Boston,
p. 49. — ED.]
8 [Andrews records, Sept. 5, 1774, that Gage
began to build block-houses and otherwise repair
the fortifications at the Neck, but he could get
none of the artisans of the town to help him.
Three days later Gage, " with a large parade of
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION. 63
and Salem the Governor had scarcely any power. The people of the inte-
rior counties recognized only the authority of the committees of correspon-
dence, and of the congresses composed of their own representatives.
On the fifth of October, the members of the Massachusetts Assembly
appeared at the court-house in Salem, but were refused recognition by
MRS. JOSEPH WARREN.1
Gage; thereupon they resolved themselves into a Provincial Congress and
adjourned to Concord, where, on the eleventh, two hundred and sixty mem-
bers, representing over two hundred towns, took their seats, and elected
attendants," surveyed the skirts of the town op-
posite the country shore, supposably for determin-
ing on sites of batteries. See an editorial note
to the chapter following this. In November, 1774,
Nathaniel Appleton writes to Josiah Quincy, Jr. :
" The main guard is kept at George Erving's
warehouse in King Street. The new-erected for-
tifications on the Neck are laughed at by our old
Louisburg soldiers as mud walls." Life of
Josiah Quincy, Jr., p. 175. — ED.]
1 [She died in 1773, aged 26. The Boston
Gazette of May 3 published some commemo-
rative verses on her. Frothingham's Warren,
p. 228. This painting is the pendant of that of
General Warren, and the two have always been
owned together. — ED.]
64 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
John Hancock president, and Benjamin Lincoln secretary. They sent a
message to the Governor, remonstrating against his hostile attitude. He
answered by making recriminations ; and shortly after issued a proclamation
denouncing them as " an unlawful assembly whose proceedings tended to
ensnare the inhabitants of the Province, and draw them into perjuries, riots,
sedition, treason, and rebellion." The Congress, having adjourned to Cam-
bridge, adopted a series of resolves providing for the creation of a " com-
mittee of public safety,"1 — a sort of directory empowered to organize the
militia and to procure military stores.2 A committee of supplies was also
appointed, and three general officers —
Preble, Ward, and Pomeroy — were
// *) chosen by ballot. Thus the people of
ts Massachusetts proceeded in a calm and
statesmanlike manner to organize themselves into an independent existence,
and to make suitable provision for their own po-
litical, financial, and military necessities. They
had no intention of attacking the British troops,
but took measures to defend themselves in case
of necessity.3 Hitherto they had carefully avoided being the aggressors,
and they were determined to adhere to this policy ; but they considered it
the part of wisdom to be prepared for any emergency which might arise in
the present complicated state of affairs. Consequently, all the towns were
advised to enroll companies of Minute Men, who should be thoroughly
drilled and equipped.4
Gage also on his part was actively employed in strengthening the gar-
rison, and by the end of the year he had no less than eleven regiments,
with artillery and marines, quartered in Boston, besides a large number of
ships of war at anchor in the harbor. During all this time the Tory party
was endeavoring, without much success, to secure adherents to the royal
cause.5 Most of their leaders, finding their position uncomfortable in the
1 Hancock, Warren, and Church were the Lodge of Masons, who had their quarters here.
Boston members. Paul Revere records how he was one of upwards
2 IMr. C. C. Smith contributed a valuable of thirty men, chiefly mechanics, who banded
paper on "The Manufacture of Gunpowder in together to keep watch on the British designs
America," to Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., March, 1876. in 1774-75, anc^ met here. The old building
— ED.] disappeared in October, 1828, when the street
8 [It was at the Green Dragon Tavern, which was widened to accommodate the travel to
stood on what now makes Union Street, near Charlestown. Shurtleff, Description of Boston,
where it runs into Haymarket Square (there is a p. 605. — ED.]
doubt whether the building now marked with 4 [The last monthly meeting of the Friends
a dragon on a tablet gives correctly the site), and was held in Boston in the eleventh month of
whose earlier history is noted in Vol. II., Intro- 1774. "The record speaks of its being a time
duction, p. v, that the leading Patriots held their of difficulty in Boston on account of the present
conclaves. It was in front a two-story brick calamity [the war] ; and the same likely to attend
building with a pitch roof, but of greater eleva- them through the winter, Boston monthly meet-
tion in the rear; and over the entrance an iron ing is dropped." — An Historical Account of the
rod projected, and upon it was crouched the various Meeting-houses of the Society of Friends in
copper dragon which was the tavern's sign. It Boston, published by direction of the Yearly
was probably selected as a meeting place because Meeting, Boston, 1874. — ED.]
Warren was the Grand Master of the Grand 5 See Sabine's Loyalists.
THE BEGINNING OF THE REVOLUTION.
country towns, took refuge in Boston as a kind of asylum. Their organs de-
nounced the Patriots as rebels, rioters, republicans, and sowers of sedition.
At the beginning of the year 1775 the American question was brought
forward in the House of Lords by the Earl of Chatham, who, in one of his
most eloquent speeches, urged the immediate
removal of the king's troops from Boston. He
eulogized the American people, their union,
their spirit of liberty, and the wisdom which
marked the proceedings of their Congress.1 He charged the ministry with
misleading the king and alienating the affections of his subjects. Chatham
was ably supported by Shelburne, Camden, and Rockingham ; but all their
appeals " availed no more than the whistling of the wind." The motion
was rejected by nearly four to one. This result, following as it did the re-
jection by the Cabinet of the petition of Congress which Franklin had just
presented, was sufficient proof that nothing was to be hoped for from that
quarter. If any further evidence was wanted, it was soon found in the in-
structions which were sent to Gage to act offensively, and in the Restraining
Act, which excluded New England from the fisheries.2
While England was thus forcing on the issue, America was preparing to
meet it. The new Congress convened at Cambridge in February, and ap-
pointed its committee of safety and the delegates to the next Continental
Congress. Provision was also made for the militia ; and Colonels Thomas
and Heath were commissioned additional general officers. " Resistance to
tyranny ! " was now the watchword for Massachusetts. " Life and liberty
shall go together ! Continue steadfast ! " said the Patriots ; " and with a
proper sense of your dependence on God, nobly defend those rights which
Heaven gave and no man ought to take from us." 3
1 [See the History of Lord North's Adminis-
tration, p. 187; Hugh Boyd's Miscellaneous
Works, i. 196; Annual Register, 1775, p. 47 ;
Belsham's Great Britain, vi. 91 ; Life of Josiah,
Quincy, Jr., p. 318. — ED ]
2 [See various references for political move-
ments in England at this time in Winsor's
Handbook, p. 23, etc. — ED.]
8 [In March came the anniversary of the
massacre, and Warren's most famous address in
commemoration. See Mr. Goddard's chapter.
The diary of Joshua Green, making note of it,
speaks of the attempts of British officers present
at the town-meeting which followed, to break it up
by unseemly disturbances. (Mass. Hist Soc. Proc.,
VOL. III. — 9.
1875, p. 101.) About this time (March 22, 1775),
according to statements printed in a Boston
letter in the New York Journal, a number of
drunken British officers set to hacking the fence
before Hancock's house ; and on a repetition of
such annoyances, Hancock applied for a guard.
While the congregation of the West Church
were observing a fast, drums and fifes were
played by another party close under the win-
dows. Something of the feeling of the time can
be gathered from letters of Quincy, Cooper,
Winthrop, and Warren, printed in Massachu-
setts Historical Society's Proceedings, June, 1863,
— all addressed to Benjamin Franklin in Lon-
don. — ED.]
66
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Gage did his utmost to disarm and disperse the militia and seize their
military stores. He sent expeditions to Marshfield and Jamaica Plain and
Salem ; l but the judicious and spirited conduct of the inhabitants defeated
his object, and the peace was not then disturbed. For a time it was quiet,
but it was only the lull before the storm ; and the hour of the American
Revolution, which had been so long in coming, was near at hand. The
War of Independence on this continent began 2 at last on that memorable
morning, enshrined forever in the annals of freedom, when
" The troops were hastening from the town
To hold the country for the Crown ;
But through the land the ready thrill
Of patriot hearts ran swifter still.
"The winter's wheat was in the ground,
Waiting the April zephyr's sound ;
But other growth these fields should bear
When war's wild summons rent the air."
1 [The expedition to Salem was sent by Gage
in transport from the Castle, and its three hun-
dred troops, landing at Marblehead, marched to
Salem to seize some cannon. Their failure and
retreat is- described in Charles M. Endicott's
Leslie's Retreat at the North Bridge, Feb. 26, 1775,
printed separately for vol. i. of the Essex Institute
Proceedings. See also Life of Timothy Pickering.
i., and George B. Loring's Address on the centen-
nial observance of the event. The contemporary
accounts of the Marshfield expedition are in
Force's American Archives. Of another and
more secret expedition just now, that of Captain
Brown and his companion De Berniere, sent by
Gage inland toward Worcester to pick up infor-
mation, we have their own account, printed in
the American Archives, \. Gage's instructions
to these emissaries, Feb. 22, 1775, were printed
in Boston in a pamphlet in 1779, which also con-
tains "The Transactions of the British troops
previous to and at the Battle of Lexington," as
reported to Gage. — ED.]
2 [Various claims have been made for earlier
shedding of blood and resistance in arms, like
the capture of the fort at Great Island, near
Portsmouth, Dec. 13, 1774, — see American Ar-
chives, Belknap's New Hampshire, Amory's Gen-
eral Sullivan and Gwernor Sullivan, Mass. Hist.
Soc. Proc., March, 1875; or the Golden Hill
affair, Jan. 19, 1770, near New York, — sec Hist.
Mag., iv. 233, and again January, 1869; or the
Westminster massacre, March, 1775, in Ver-
mont,— see Hist. Mag., May, 1859; see also
Potter's American Monthly, April, 1875. — ED.]
CHAPTER II.
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.
BY THE REV. EDWARD E. HALE, D.D.
A FTER dark on the i8th of April, 1775, eight hundred British troops,
-^*- being the grenadiers and light infantry of Gage's army, were with-
drawn as quietly as might be from their barracks and marched to the bay
at the foot of the Common. The spot is near where the station of the
Providence Railroad now stands.1 Boats from the squadron had been or-
dered to the same point to meet them. The troops were under the com-
mand of Lieut. -Colonel Francis Smith, of the Tenth regiment. Directly
northward, crossing by about the line of Arlington Street what are now
the Commonwealth Avenue and Beacon Street, the little army came to
Phips's Farm, now East Cambridge, and after two hours took up its silent
march through Cambridge to Lexington and Concord. The column con-
sisted of men drawn from the Fifth regiment, the Tenth, Thirty-eighth,
Forty-third, Fifty-second, Fifty-ninth, and Sixty-fifth. Officers and men
from each of these corps appeared in the list of killed and wounded after
the next day. In some instances they may have been detached on separate
service ; in which case no large number of the regiment was present on the
march.2
What happened at Concord, and on the way thither and back, has worked
its way into the world's history. " On the nineteenth of April," says the me-
morial of the Provincial Congress, " a day to be remembered by all Amer-
icans of the present generation, and which ought and doubtless will be
handed down to ages yet unborn, the troops of Britain, unprovoked, shed
the blood of sundry of the loyal American subjects of the British King in.
the field of Lexington."
The Common and the Back Bay were so far apart from the familiar
haunts of men in those days, that General Gage had some hope, perhaps,
of sending his men away without an immediate alarm.3 But this hope was
1 [Here was water enough for the boats (see 2 [Donkin, Military Collections, p. 170, says
map at beginning of Vol. I.), but Gage's account they carried "72 rounds of ball-cartridges per
says simply "from the Common." Smith says man." — ED.]
nothing. The usual story runs simply " from the 3 [See the Editorial notes following this
foot of the Common." — ED.] chapter. — ED.]
68 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
disappointed. Thirty men of the Patriot party, mostly mechanics, had
bound themselves into a club, to observe the movements of the Tories and
the army. They took turns as patrols, two and two, to watch the streets at
night. Some one, who was perhaps one of these men, told Dr. Warren
that the soldiers were moving to the Back Bay. Warren immediately sent
William Davves to Lexington, whither John Hancock and Samuel Adams
had retired to escape arrest, supposing that one object of the expedition
was to seize them. Dawes started on horseback, crossing the Neck to
Roxbury. At ten o'clock Warren sent to Paul Revere, who was one of the
club of patrolmen, and begged him to go to Lexington and tell Hancock
and Adams of the movement, " and that it was thought they were the
objects." Paul Revere went to a friend who had a boat in readiness, and
crossed at once to Charlestown. So early was Gage's secret known. Sted-
man, in his history of the war, says that Gage told Percy of the movement
as a profound secret ; that Colonel Smith knew he was to go, but not where.
As Lord Percy returned to his own quarters, he fell in with eight or ten
men talking on the Common. One of them said : " The troops have
marched, but will miss their aim." " What aim? " said Lord Percy.
" Why," the man replied, " the cannon at Concord." Lord Percy, ac-
cording to the story, returned to General Gage and told him, with surprise
and disapprobation, what he had heard. The General said that his con-
fidence had been betrayed, for that he had communicated his design to
only one person beside Lord Percy. This is one of the flings of the time
upon Mrs. Gage,1 who was American-born. The English officers who dis-
liked Gage were fond of saying that she betrayed his secrets. But in this
case, after eight hundred men were embarked for Cambridge, ten Boston men
on the Common might well have known it; and " the cannon at Concord "
were a very natural aim. Warren, as has been said, thought of Hancock
and Adams as the object.2
Paul Revere had already concerted with his friends on the Charlestown
side, that, in the event of any movement by night on the part of the Eng-
1 [Adams had learned of the movement to be at the house, an order was left for him to
Concord from "a daughter of liberty, une- report himself at eight o'clock at the bottom
qually yoked in point of politics," as Gordon of the Common, equipped for an expedition,
says. — ED.] Mrs. Stedman hastened to inform her husband of
2 The following narrative, kindly communi- this alarming summons, and he at once carried
.cated by a granddaughter of Dr. Stedman, the the intelligence to Dr. Benjamin Church, who
great-granddaughter of Henry Quincy, shows lived near by on Washington Street. Gibson
exactly how the news travelled from house to soon came in and took leave of his wife, pale
house without treachery. Mrs. Stedman lived with anxiety at the doubtful issue of this sudden
in the Salter homestead, at the corner of Winter and secret enterprise. ' Oh, Gibson ! ' said my
and Washington streets, where is now Tuttle's mother, 'what are you going to do?' 'Ah,
shoe-store : — madam I ' he replied, ' I know as little as you
" It was difficult at that time to obtain ser- do. I only know that I must go.' He went,
vants, and Mrs. Stedman had been glad to sc- never to return. He fell on the retreat from
cure the services of a woman whose husband Lexington. A few minutes before receiving
was a British soldier named Gibson. On the the fatal shot he remarked to one of his corn-
evening of the eighteenth of April a grenadier in rades that he had never seen so hot a day,
full regimentals knocked at the door and inquired though he had served in many campaigns
for Gibson. On being told that he would soon in Europe."
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.
69
lish army, a lantern should be displayed in the tower of Christ Church.
This signal had announced the news to the Charlestown people before
1 [Of the likenesses of Revere, Mr. Hun-
toon, in an address at Canton in 1875, says:
" Two pictures have been preserved of him ; one,
taken in the full prime of manhood, by Copley,
which, after having lain neglected for many years
in an attic in this town, has been finally restored.
The other, by Stuart, brings up a venerable face
and stately form." Perkins, Copley's Life and
Paintings, p. 98, says the earlier picture is now
owned by John Revere, of Boston. It shows
him at a table, in shirt-sleeves, holding a silver
cup, with engraver's tools at hand. The latter
is followed in the present cut.
Revere's agreement for engraving and print-
ing the paper money of the Provincial Congress
is dated Watertown, Dec. 8, 1775, and is in the
Massachusetts Archives, cxxxviii. 271. A cut of
the Massachusetts treasury-note of 1775 is given
in Lossing's Field-Book of the Revolution, i. 534.
— ED.]
yo THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Revere arrived. He mounted his horse, and the famous " Midnight Ride "
of Longfellow's ballad began. The night was clear and frosty.
With the exceptions of the patrolmen, of such leading Patriots as
Warren and others, to whom they reported, and the families in which
officers on duty were quartered, most of the people of Boston probably
slept without knowing that the first step had been taken toward war. But
before daylight on the nineteenth, General Gage had received word from
Colonel Smith that the country was alarmed, and he at once ordered a de-
tachment under arms to march out to reinforce that officer, and show the
king's strength. This detachment was to be commanded by Earl Percy,
who had led the five regiments which made the " promenade " of March
30 through Jamaica Plain and Dorchester. Percy was at this time a fine
young officer of about thirty years of age.1
Percy's command consisted of the First Brigade, formed of the Fourth,
Twenty-third, and Forty-seventh regiments, to which a detail of the Royal
Marines was joined. To summon the marines, the order was sent to Major
Pitcairn, their commander. In the precision of the red-tape of Gage's
office, yet new to war, it was forgotten that Pitcairn had already gone as a
volunteer with Colonel Smith. The letter therefore, with the orders to the
marines, waited on his table unopened, while the rest of the detachment
paraded. The venerable Harrison Gray Otis in his old age left the fol-
lowing account of this parade : -
"On the 1 9th April, 1775, I went to school for the last time. In the morning,
about seven, Percy's brigade was drawn up, extending from Scollay's Buildings, through
Tremont Street, and nearly to the bottom of the Mall, preparing to take up their
march for Lexington. A corporal came up to me as I was going to school, and turned
me off to pass down Court Street ; which I did, and came up School Street to the
school-house. It may well be imagined that great agitation prevailed, the British
line being drawn up a few yards only from the school-house door. As I entered the
school, I heard the announcement of deponite libros, and ran home for fear of the
Regulars. Here ended my connection with Mr. Lovell's administration of the school.
Soon afterward I left town, and did not return until after the evacuation by the
British in March, I776."2
Why does not the column move? Percy is ready. The infantry are here,
and the light artillery; where are the marines? It is discovered at this late
moment that the order for the marines is lying unopened at Major Pitcairn's
quarters. Three or four hours before this, had anybody in Boston known
it, Major Pitcairn had uttered on Lexington Common that famous appeal,
1 He was afterward Duke of Northumber- that Master Lovell, with prophetic sagacity, said :
land. His letters, copied by the Rev. E. G. "War's begun, and school's done; deponite lib-
Porter on a recent visit at the castle of the ros." He knew that this was war, though the
present duke, give us some of our most vivid news of bloodshed did not reach Boston till noon,
contemporary accounts of the Boston of that [Loring, Hundred Boston Orators, p. 193, makes
time. the young Otis just afterward a witness of the
2 MS. letter of Otis to the writer, E. E. H. troops' march by a house which stood where the
A tradition, which we have at first-hand, says Revere House now is. — ED.J
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON. 71
familiar to any school-boy in America for half a century after: "Ye vil-
lains, ye rebels, disperse ! Lay down your arms. Why don't ye lay down
your arms? "
But as yet no man knows where he is, and the orders for his marines are
waiting. This is only an early instance of a sort of imbecility which hangs
over the English army administration, revealed in many of the early anec-
dotes of the war.1
So soon as the marines were ready Percy marched, at nine o'clock.
He moved south, through what is now Washington Street, to Roxbury, up
the hill by the Roxbury meeting-house, to the right, where the Parting-
Stone was then and is now ; and so to the Brighton Bridge, where he was to
cross Charles River to Cambridge. The distance from the head of School
Street to that bridge by that road is about eight miles. But even if Gage
was eager to save time, the boats were at Phips's Farm. Probably he
and Percy both wished to make a military display. School -boys will be in-
terested to know, that, as Percy's column approached Roxbury, Williams, the
master of the grammar school, dismissed his school also, probably an hour
later than Lovell dismissed his. He turned the key in the lock, joined his
company, and served for the seven following years in the army. The Rox-
bury company of Minute Men had paraded in the mean time, summoned
by the alarm from Lexington. When Percy passed, on the old road to
Cambridge, they appear to have been at Jamaica Plain, whither the com-
mander had marched them, and where Dr. Gordon was leading them in
prayer. It is fair to suppose that no commander in his senses chose to
have them in the line of Earl Percy's advance.
As Percy rode on, his band was playing Yankee Doodle. He observed
a Roxbury boy who was uttering shouts of derision, jumping and dancing,
so as to attract Percy's attention. Percy sent for the boy and asked him at
what he was laughing. " You go out to Yankee Doodle," said the lad,
" but you will dance by and by to Chevy Chase." It was a happy allu-
sion to the traditions of the Percys; and Gordon, who records the anec-
dote, says the repartee stuck to Lord Percy all day.2
The day was already hot, when, after three or four hours' marching,
Lord Percy and his army came to the bridge over Charles River, between
'Brighton and Cambridge. The bridge was a simple affair, and by General
1 If anybody happens to care, Major Pitcairn
is the nephew of the naval officer who discovered This fight did last from break of day
Pitcairn's Island. Observe " Marines." Til1 settins of the sun>
2 As the boy and Lord Percy remembered the F<lwhKen ^ rung the <;vening be"
. „ . , The battle scarce was done,
ballad, these are some of the telling verses : —
God prosper long our noble King, With stout Erie Percy, there was slaine
Our lives and safetyes all : sir John °f Egerton,
A woefull hunting once there did sir Robert Ratcliff, and Sir John,
In Chevy-Chase befall. sir James, that bold barron.
Horace Walpole in one of his letters of the
lo drive the deere with hound and home, .. 1*1. u «tu t, *•
Erie Percy took his way ; tlme makes the Same alluslon to the huiltlng
The child may rue, that is unborne, of that day-" Walpolis Letters to Horace Mann,
The hunting of that day. June 5, 1775.
72 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Heath's orders the boards had been so far removed that it was impassa-
ble ; but the frugal committee of safety who had done this, not knowing
yet what war was, had piled the boards on the Cambridge side, instead
of boldly committing them to the water. Percy sent soldiers across on the
string-pieces of the bridge, who relaid the boards so far that his troops
could cross. He left his baggage-train for the better completion of the
bridge, and pressed on, knowing indeed that the country was growing hot in
more senses than one. When he came upon Cambridge Common, where
were then no fences, but many roadways leading in different directions, Lord
Percy was confused, and needed instructions as to his route. Cambridge was
shut up. No man, woman, or child could be found to give him information,
except a tutor of the college, Isaac Smith, afterward preceptor of Dummer
Academy. Smith, being asked the road to Lexington, " could not tell a
lie." Instead of sending Lord Percy down to Phips's Point, as the Pa-
triots of the time thought he should have done, he directed him to
Menotomy, now Arlington, on the right road.1 Percy followed it, and
arrived in Lexington at two or three in the afternoon,2 in time to receive
Smith's scattered and worried men ; but his baggage-train, delayed at the
bridge, was cut off at Menotomy.3 It appears from Percy's own letters that
he did not know till he arrived at Menotomy, about one in the afternoon,
that there had been any fighting beyond.
Meanwhile Dr. Warren had heard in Boston, early in the day, by a spe-
cial messenger, this news which Percy did not receive till one in the after-
noon. Warren left his patients in the care of Eustis.4 He crossed to Charles-
town, and never returned to his home. As he left the ferry-boat he said to
the last person with whom he spoke : " Keep up a brave heart ! They have be-
gun it, — that either party can do ; and we '11 end it, — that only one can do."
This was at eight in the morning. He mounted his horse at Charlestown.
As he rode through the town he met Dr. Welch, who said, " Well, they are
gone out." " Yes, and we will be up with them before night." 5 Dr. Welch
seems to have joined him. He says : " Tried to pass Percy's column ;
stopped by bayonets. Two British officers rode up to Dr. Warren, in the
rear of the British, inquiring, ' Where are the troops? ' The doctor did not
know; they were greatly alarmed." These were probably the commanders
of Percy's baggage-train ; and this incident places Warren at Cambridge as
late as twelve or one o'clock of that day.
1 Smith was sent to Coventry by his neigh- church in Arlington marks the spot where the
bors for giving this information, and was obliged, " old men " captured this train. See Vol. II. p.
or thought he was, to embark for England a 382. — ED.]
few weeks later (May 27), where he preached to 4 Who was afterward Lieut.-Governor and
a Dissenting chapel in Sidmouth for a while ; but acting Governor of the State,
returning in 1784, he became librarian of Har- 5 Another diary dates this as late as ten in
vard, and later chaplain of the Boston Alms- the morning. [See Richard Frothingham's Life
house. See Evacuation Memorial, p. 190. of Joseph Warren, p. 457, (who quotes the state-
2 This is his own naming of an hour which is ments in the text from a manuscript of Dr.
sometimes stated rather later in the day. Welch) and his Siege of Boston, p. 77, for further
8 [A stone beside the road and opposite the accounts. — ED.]
AClRCUMSTANTrAL ACCOUNT
Of an Attack that happened on ihe i9th of April 1775, on hi
MAJESTY v Troops,
By a Number of the People of the Province of MASSACHUSETTS
BAY.
ON Toefoay the i8th of April, about half pad 10
at Night, Lieurenanr Coluncl Smith ot 'he icth
R<*l>iiiienr, emt»rkrd from the Common at Bo/ton.
with the G'enadiers and L>g>>t Infantry <>l the
Troops there. iod laodrd on the oppolite Side. t'o.n
Whence he _beg»n his March toward] Concord, whe/t he
V«i -vdeed to dc/lrov a Magszt.-e of Militaiy Stores, ..le
OfiflUd tl»err »c,r tor Ule v>f .m Army to be riffi-inhieil, in
\)r<jrr tu aft Jga-'nfl hi» Wlijrftv, and hij Government. The
Colon 1 ( ••Hrf his Odicm togerhet and yave Orders, that l he
1 roi'fjs lu.ulci not lirt-, vnlels hrrd upon . and atier nurch-
W * fe* Miles, derachetl Ox Companies o?"Lighr lnrai.tif,
Untie- the Command ol M*)rv P.tcair", to take Poll'tHiou
Ijl two Undoes on »he otiier Side ot Concord : boon utter
lh>» heard many Signal Guns, and the ringing of AUrm
Drill fepeaieillv, which convinced them that the Country
**<rc rlfmg to oppof.- them, «n3 that it was.* preconcerted
fcttiWWe to opp-.d- the King's I tempi, whenever tlu-re
flionld be a lav.,r<,0le Opportunity for it. About 4 o^Clock
ll'.r next Morning, ihe 1 ri>o|is being advanced within two
lvile» ot Lfx-.vjton, lritrllii>rn<-e was rrrei.cd tfWt nboul
t'i»c Hundred Mm H. Arms, were ifrrmhled, *>d drtcr-
fHtneO to op,v»fe the King's Troops :• and oh Mijor Hit-
Vllrn't gultopping op.tn ilie Head, of th<? advanced Compa-
fliei, t«o GHircru informed him that a Man advanced (io<n
(hole, that were iQemblcd) had prcfcw-d his Mulqmt J-M!
•I'rmptcd ;o flioor ihem, but the Piece fltmtd in tin fan •
On this thrM.ij.jr gave direfliont to the Troopi to move
fo'*»rd, tut on no Account to fire, not even lo irrmipt it
V.thnut Odfrg,- VVh»n thr, arnved at the End ol the
Village, they ob(erv«) ^bou, JOO ,rnird Men. dn-n up oo
• G'»en, and *nen the Tirx.ps came »uhm a Hundrrd
ttr4t of then), ihry brgan lr> tile off toimds fo<r>e Monc
V/alli, on thtir n^ht Flank • The Luiht l.ilantry nhlrrving
Ihil, ran after thrm » the Maior mftantry called to me S«|.
llir<l out to fifp. hut to lurrounH an^ diUnn thi-tn . low .if
Iliem who h^d jumped <>vtt a Wall, then li/etl tat" v live
Phot IC^the Troops, wounded a Man pf the ic'li R'gi-
tri«>«t, ifld the Moor's Hinfr in ivn PUcr». a-«l ^t the
Cj«i» "Kirhe feveial Sfcnn Weie fnrd iiom a Meeting I iuulc
<m the left'' TJpin tfcii, ttri'ihuut mi O«clei or RrguU'K).
»r)f Light Infantry hegan a fcatteretl F^re, and killed fr»i-rj|
"f tt)*1 Courrtry People ; but wera. fiicncc J at focp as tin
Authority at t(itir OR'-ccrs. could n.ati: theoi.
•f After thi*. Colonel Smith marched up with the Remain
dcr of the Detachment, and the whole Body proceeded '4
Concord, where iltcy arrived about 9 o'CWk iwiivout
<n» Thing further happening •, but »afl numbers nf armciS
I'cople *erc fetn A(Tcmb|iiig on all the Hetjihii whi
Colonel Smiili wuh in? Grenadicrv, a-K' Part ot (he LnjW
Infantry rrmamed 4 Concord, to fcarch lor (.aonon. °«.
rtew ( lie detached Outain Parlons WH'-. fix Ligh: CMIT>|.«I-
ni« to fccU'e a Bridge at fow.r ITiltancc fro«n C«HP4 ••nil
10 proctcJ from thencr to leitam rtoufri. whfrc n »«i
fuppolc*! there -wa^ Ctnoon, ani AmmunniOii i Cepmn
1'arfons in p-jtfumcc of thrfe Oid:n, ported three Tmnpa*
••alii. »..)
t.tl.tf OlM.'l>ll» lfpl'MloWl«»
'<in at the Bridge, lid nn finv fTrigtitf n«r if, under tua
Comtn<nd 'i *. ap'Jiu Launc OJ the 4}d Rrgt>nent ; itnd
ttti (he RerrMinrter Went anj <>rllroyrrl lo.pe Cannon
Wjictls, ['ureter, tod Ball }, the l^fop* ftilf coiKinued
. ncrcafing on the Height*; anu uMtgtUt sit- Jtiour after,
<1arge Body ol them began to move towards the Bridge^
irte.Light Co.niJames oJ ihe 4th and loth then ilcfccndcd,
tivi joined C.ij'uin Laurie, ihe People continued to ad*
rfancrin greai Numbers ; aoJ Sred upon the Kingi! roopi,
killed rhrrc Men. wountrd 'out O!ficer>, one ^erjcaot.
ind lour orivatc Men, upon which (jitci Ktvrping the &»X
Capuin Laurie ar.d his Officer?, thought it ptudenl td
ki*ttrat ID*. His the Main Budy at Co<ic<>rdf and were food
jvined b, iwu Compantet of Grenada^] , when Capiairl
Papons returned with trie .hrte Companies over iba
Bridge, they cbfcrved tliiee Solilir r» on ihr Ground une of
thrni l^iptd, hi& Head much mangled, and hi) fc.ars cut
afT, lliiAnni quite dead , a Si^hi which (Irutk die Soldierf
with Horror , Captain I'.irlons mj't^cd on and joined the
MainTBody. who were only waniDy lor h^s commg up, to
inarch back 10 Bodnn , Colonel Smith Kid excrutcd his
OtOcrs, wilhovt Oppiifuico, bf ileOroymgf all the Ivlilu.iry
Stores be cooM bnd -, t).,th ihe Colonel, and Major
I'ircaira, tuvmg t->kcn au pnfTibtc Paitu to convince the
fohaUtMRi tf«' no »o)«wy w»» i,,tcndtd thttts and UuC A
ihey opened tt.f" fltton when requlcec1. w f^-cn t<n (juj
Sior*x not ihr fl.gi'relt MifUncf IhrxU Of dniif » neither
bail any of thr People the leaft Occifion to (omplam, but
they u-er: luikv, and one ol them even flruilc Major
Piirairn. F.tcrrx upoi Captain Laurie; at ,rhc Bridge,
Ao MoftililKt bappcned from ihe Affair at Lexington,
jinul ihe Troopi began their N'arcii back. As fouo at
ihe Troops had pot out o* the Town ot Concnrtt, they
received a heavy Fire from ali Sides, from Wild, Fences,
Hiwftt, Trees, Bains, tec. which continued without Inter-
niilliurt, till tbey met t;ie firft Brigade, with two field Pieces,
near Lexington t ordered out under the Coniaund ol i.oid
Prrcjr ro fupport.' them ; (adnce having been rtctn-ed
about 7 o'Clock next Morning, that Signals had bern
mode, and Exprefles gone out 9 alarm the Country, and
tK.u the People were nCng to attack the Troops under
Colonel Smith. ) Upon'the Firing of the l-'ield T.ccei, the
Peopli-'' F«re wss lor a while Tilenccrl, bur •* they ftill con-
i f-J to rocrcafr "ftaUy In Numberi, they fi'cd tgam'aj
urlorr. fruai all t'brrt wrre they coold jinrj trover, upon
the whole Body, and continued fo doing for- the Space of
Fifteen Miles : Notviithflanding their Number) they didnot
attack openly duiuifj the Whole D:y, but k?pt unatr Co»et
On all Occifioiu Tht Troops weie vrry iimch (jn^uct),
IJ>e grcaicr Part ol thpm hiv.ng »rrr» under A'ms all
Night, and nude a M*rcl; of upwaidi of Forty M'kl
before trxy arnved at Crmltilovtn, froir. whence ibt/
were fcrrycd over to Bofloii.
The Troops hat! abov# Fifty killed. -«nd man? more
wounded Kepn'U a'c vat-iu»s about the Loft fi. Owned
br Hit Counti r Pfjplt, fcn« m*kc it »et/ confidcrtOlfj
oilier s not (o niucrt.
Th.i-, tv.:- jnforfun«te /\(TjT his *i?pp-nrc: Ihrnu^h "if
Rifln.efa .-.n'.l '.'ipT,.Ht.Kt KI a tew Pcoplt. who *>f5,4l
Filing oil tit: r.'oo'.>< at Lciirgion
GAGE'S ACCOUNT OF THE NINETEENTH OF APRILX 1775.
VOL. III. — 10.
74 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
The anxiety of Boston that day is easily imagined.1 Gage had sent out
a considerable part of his army, eighteen hundred men, from a force not four
thousand. His communication with his force in the field was by no means
as good as that of the Patriots. The sun had gone down when, to anxious
eyes watching from Beacon Hill, the flashes of muskets on Milk Row2 —
the road from Cambridge to CHarlestown — revealed the line of the retreat.
Percy was now in command. He did not mean to risk an embarkation at
Phips's Point, where the boats were still lying. Pickering's Essex regiment
was on his flank at Winter Hill, and he chose to put Charlestown Neck
between himself and pursuit.3 He arrived there after eight o'clock. Heath,
who during the afternoon had been exercising a general command, called
off the Patriot forces. Percy bivouacked on Bunker Hill ; and thus was
the war begun.4 The selectmen sent word to Percy that if he would not
attack Charlestown they would take care that his troops should not be mo-
lested, and would do all in their power to get them over the ferry. The
"Somerset" man-of-war sent her boats first for the wounded, then for the
rest of the troops. The pickets of the Tenth regiment were sent from Bos-
ton to keep all quiet. The Americans put sentinels at Charlestown Neck,
and made prisoner of an officer of the Sixty-fourth, who was going to join
his regiment at Castle William.
From that time till the next March, what is popularly called " the siege
of Boston " continued. Civil government stopped in the town. The select-
men's record ends with a typical blank : " At a meeting of the selectmen, this
19th Apl., 1775, present, Mesrs. Newhall, Austin, Marshall, ," and this
is all ! The civil magistracy did no more as matter of formal record till
March 5, 1776, when they appear again. Martial law came in, of which a
contemporary definition says: "A provost-marshal is a man who does as he
chooses ; and martial law is permission to him to do so."
All the night of the battle-day minute-men were marching and riding
from all parts of New England to Cambridge. Before daybreak of the
1 [The various rumors which reached Boston, are some interesting relics of Lexington, — two
during the progress of events that day, are noted firelocks bequeathed to the State by Theodore
in Andrews's letters. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., Parker : one, the first firearm captured in the
July, 1865, p. 404. — ED.] war; and the other carried by the testator's
2 Now, alas ! " Washington Street," in Som- grandfather, Captain John Parker, on that day.
erville. See Hist. Mag., July, 1860, by J. S. Loring. An
3 [" Had Earl Percy returned to Boston by official report of the selectmen of the losses to
the same road he marched out, . . . probably his property sustained at Lexington, and made Jan.
brigade might have been cut off." So says Percy's 24, 1782, is in Massachusetts Archives, cxxxviii.
eulogist, Major R. Donkin in his Military Col- 410. Numerous relics of the fight have been
lections: New York, 1777, p. 87. This book, collected in the Town Hall at Lexington, and
which is rare, is in Harvard College Library.
It is dedicated to Percy, and ostensibly pub-
lished for the benefit of the families of the
victims "of the bloody massacre committed on
his Majesty's troops peaceably marching to and
from Concord, the igth April, 1775, begun and various houses are still standing there which
instigated by the Massachusetians." — ED.] bear marks of the fray. Statues of Hancock
4 [In the senate-chamber at the State House and Adams are also in the hall. — ED.]
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON. 75
morning of the twentieth, little towns in the western part of Worcester
County were awakened by the tramp of men pressing eastward, or by the
rumble of the wagons which bore them. Before night a considerable army
was in Cambridge. And Gage never again sent an armed man out by land
from Boston, as Boston is now constituted. Indeed, no man of his other
than deserters, of which there were many, after this moment set foot in
Roxbury or in Brighton except as a prisoner; nor in Dorchester, excepting
Dorchester Neck, which is now South Boston.
In describing the siege, we shall speak of Boston as it was then under-
stood ; meaning the peninsula. A considerable part of the American army
was in Roxbury and in Brighton. These places, and Charlestown where
the great battle of the siege was fought, and Dorchester Heights where the
end came, are now all included within the city. But we shall speak of these
places by their old names.
General Clinton, who afterward commanded the British army, was not
here on the day of the battle of Lexington ; but he says of Percy's move-
ment: " He gave them every reason to suppose that he would return by the
route he came, but fell back on Charlestown ; thus securing his retreat un-
molested, and a place which ought never to have been given up, and which
cost us half the force engaged to recover." l This means that at North
Cambridge Percy took the more direct route to Charlestown, instead of
making the angle at Cambridge Common.2 But if he had attempted to add
nine miles to the march of men, many of whom had already marched thirty,
he would have found at Charles River the bridge again removed, and barri-
cades erected from the materials. He had his train of wounded in carriages
which he had seized for their conveyance. In point of fact, he did not se-
cure his retreat; for he received at Prospect Hill the hottest fire of the way.
His own account is distinct: " In this manner we retired for fifteen miles,
under incessant fire all around us, till we arrived at Charlestown, which road
I chose to take, lest the rebels should have taken up the bridge at Cam-
bridge (which I find was actually the case), and also as the country was
more open and the road shorter." 3 Stragglers had given the alarm of their
approach in Charlestown. As the tired army filed in on the Neck it met
streams of people pouring out. The Regulars, no longer pursued, vented
their rage in frightening women and children as they emptied their pieces.
The soldiers called for drink at taverns and houses, and " encamped on a
place called Bunker's Hill." 4
When, on the night of the nineteenth and on the morning of the
twentieth, wounded and dying men were brought into Boston from Charles-
1 Clinton's MS. notes to Stedman's History, across the water from Boston. See note to
[This copy of Stedman is in the Carter-Brown Mansfield's sermon in the Roxbury Camp, Nov.
Library at Providence. See Winsor's Hand- 23, 1775, as quoted by Thornton, Pulpit of the
book, p. 130. — ED.] Revolution, p. 236. — ED.]
2 [There was a story current at the time that 8 Percy's MS. letter to his father, from a
Percy in returning from Concord had intended copy in the hands of the Rev. E. G. Porter.
to stop at Cambridge and fortify, after destroy- 4 For the origin of this name see Vol. I.
ing the college buildings, being reinforced p. 390.
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3 S
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON. 77
town and carried to their quarters and to hospitals, people began to see
what war was. That part of the towns-people who did not favor the Eng-
lish began to move into the country with such stores as they could carry.
Gage insisted that they should not take their arms, and made a sort of con-
vention, which caused much discussion afterward, by which he promised to
give permits for departure to all who would deliver their arms. In fact
" 1,778 firearms, 973 bayonets, 634 pistols, and 38 blunderbusses" were de-
livered. The number shows the military habit of the people. The tradition
of the next generation said that they were in very poor order for use.
Gage attempted to limit the number of wagoners, who should enter daily
from the country, to thirty a day. In regard to this he received sharp re-
monstrances from Dr. Warren,1 who on the twenty-third began to act as
chairman of the provincial committee of safety. Before long the English
generals were glad to diminish the number of mouths they had to feed.
Additional parties were sent out after the hot weather of summer came on.
Some of them carried small-pox with them. The last was a party of three
hundred poor people sent out on November 25. Many families left Boston
in this emigration which have never returned. To this day, in many of the
inland towns of New England, the family tradition takes in the hurried de-
parture from Boston " when the siege began." On the other hand, some
royalist families moved in from the country. There is a good deal of cor-
respondence about Lady Frankland, — the same who saved her husband2
at the earthquake at Lisbon, — and the quantity of live stock and furniture
which she might bring into town from Hopkinton, where was her home.3
On the very day of the battle of Lexington a corps of Loyalists was
formed in Boston. Two hundred tradesmen and merchants offered their
services to Gage, and were accepted. Their corps was placed under the
command of Timothy Ruggles, of Hard-
wick, — the same who presided at Phila-
delphia at the first Continental Congress,
ten years before. They are spoken of as
" the gentlemen volunteers." It was said
that Ruggles was the best soldier in the colonies, and that he would have
been in high command among the Americans had he taken the right side.4
1 In a letter dated the twenty-sixth or twenty- them ; all the boxes and crates ; a basket of
ninth, not the twentieth, as erroneously printed chickens, and a bag of corn ; two barrels and a
in Force and later writers. hamper ; two horses and two chaises, and all the
2 Oliver Cromwell's great-great grandson. articles in the chaise, excepting arms and am-
8 ^Hopkinton, May 15, 1775. — Lady Frank- munition; one phaeton; some tongues, ham, and
lamd begs she may have her pass for Thurs- veal ; and sundry small bundles." [See Vol. II.
day. A list of things for Lady Frankland : six p. 526. — ED.]
trunks, one chest, three beds and bedding, six 4 [As the winter wore on, the Loyalists in Bos-
wethers, two pigs, one small keg of pickled ton were formed into military organizations for
tongues, some hay, three bags of corn." The guard duty and the like : the Loyal American
answer of the Provincial Congress is Homeric : Associators, Brigadier-General Timothy Ruggles,
"Resolved, that Lady Frankland be permitted to commandant; Loyal Irish Volunteers, James
go to Boston with the following articles, — viz., Forrest, captain ; Royal Fencible Americans,
seven trunks; all the beds with the furniture to Colonel Gorham. — ED.]
78 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
The Tory party gradually acquired more and more ascendancy with Gage.
They were afraid that when the town was emptied of Whigs the American
army would burn it. At last they threatened Gage that they would lay
down their arms and leave themselves, if he permitted further departure.
It was under the pressure of this threat that Gage at last gave way, and,
as the Patriots said, violated the engagements he made when they delivered
up their arms as already mentioned.
The time had now come, and it was the first time, when men and house-
holds had to make known, by a visible and final act, whether they stood by
the court of England or by the country. Households were often divided
against themselves. The following lines from one of the many comedies
and tragedies of the time, — of which most of the comedies are tragic, and
the tragedies comic, — expresses the situation : —
" What wretch like me
Sees misery in each alternative ?
Defeat is death ; and even victory, ruin.
Here my father, dearest, best of parents,
Whose heart, exhaustless as a mountain stream,
Pours one continued flood of kindness on me.
There is my brother ; there, too, is Rossiter,
One of the number, — all perhaps may fall ;
Fall by each other's arm — inhuman thought !
O madness, madness ! Sure the arm of death
O'er such a field may grow fatigued with conquest,
Nor need new trophies to adorn his car
With deeper deeds of honor."
Meanwhile the minute-men, who had assembled so promptly, were for
some days under no central command. On the outside the Patriots were
afraid Gage would march out, — as, on the inside, he probably was afraid
that they would march in. Colonel Robinson, of Dorchester, who with six
or seven hundred men only was watching Boston Neck in those days, spent
nine days and nights without " shifting his clothes," or lying down to sleep.
Without an adjutant or officer of the day, he patrolled his own lines every
night, — a march of nine miles. But Gage had no thought of another
" promenade." l
His own subordinates accuse him of inaction. Lord Percy writes to
his father in May: "The rebels have lately amused themselves with burn-
ing the houses on an island just under the admiral's nose; and a schooner,
with four carriage-guns and some swivels, which he sent to drive them off,
unfortunately got ashore, and the rebels burned her." This was at Hog
Island. Putnam led in the affair, and won in it the reputation which
helped him in the assignment of commissions the next month.2
1 [Thomas, a little later, deceived the British 2 [See Frothingham's Siege of Boston, p. 109;
General by marching and remarching his troops Sumner's East Boston, p. 351 ; N. E. Hist, and
along a course which could be observed by the Geneal. Keg., April, 1857, p. 137 ; Lives of Put-
British outposts, to give the appearance of a nam ; Force's Archives, etc. The affair happened
larger force than he had. — ED.] May 27, 1775. It was during this month that
*-*..^.
PANORAMIC VIF.W FROM BEACON HILL, 1775.
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON. 79
%
The truth is that until May 25 Gage's force was less than four thousand
men. Of the columns engaged on the nineteenth he had lost two hundred
and four, — one in nine, — a very large proportion. He had nothing to
march out for, for the best success would be to come back again. He
withdrew from Marshfield his one outlying detachment, and acted in the
spirit of this despatch, which he had already sent home : -
" The Regiments are now composed of small numbers, and Irregulars will be
necessary in this country, many of which, of one sort or other, I conceive may be
raised here. Nothing that is said at present can palliate. Conciliating, moderation,
reasoning, is over ; nothing can be done but by forcible means. Tho' the people are
not held in high estimation by the Troops, yet they are numerous, worked up to a
Fury, and not a Boston rabble, but the Farmers and the Freeholders of the country. A
check anywhere will be fatal, and the first stroke will decide a great deal. We should
therefore be strong, and proceed on a good foundation before anything decisive is
tried." 1
As the summer advanced, Gage and Howe fortified the town carefully.
In the Charles River they had a floating battery of six cannon ; and on
Fox Hill (now levelled), within the present Public Garden, at the bottom of
the Common, cannon were mounted, which commanded the passes of the
Neck. There was an entrenchment where the monument now stands on the
Common. Upon the hill toward Cambridge, now partly levelled and known
as Louisburg Square and Mount Vernon, a mortar battery played upon
Cambridge. This position was considered so safe that boys and other
idlers, even women, stood by the gunners to mark the shots.2 On Copp's
Gage's boats patrolled the mouth of the Charles breastworks being thrown up between them on
to give notice of " fire-stages " which the Pro- the edge of the marsh.
vincials were preparing to send down to burn These were the provisions which the British
his ships. — ED.] General had made to resist any attempt by Wash-
1 MS. in English State-Papers. ington to attack with boats. They are shown in
2 [The works occupied by the besieged on Page's map, as are also the earthworks along
the Common may be more particularly described the ridge to the north of Beacon Street. First,
as follows ; but some of them were not built till an oblong redoubt on the summit, back of the
after the battle at Charlestown : — State House, which is shown in the panoramic
A small zigzag earthwork, for infantry de- view given in this chapter, in heliotype. Second,
fence, opposite a point on Beacon Street, half- a redoubt facing the Common, not far from
way between Spruce and Charles streets, then the junction of Walnut and Chestnut streets,
the upland margin. Third, a larger redoubt, crossing Chestnut Street
A small redoubt on Fox Hill, as in the text. near Spruce and Willow, facing the water.
An earthwork where Charles and Boylston Fourth, an open breastwork by the shore, be-
streets now meet, — then at the marsh-edge, — tween Pinckney and Mount Vernon Streets, just
probably for infantry defence. above Charles Up to Christmas, notwith-
A long redoubt, occupying the space between standing the severe cannonade which the Brit-
Pleasant Street, on its curve, and the water, and ish had often maintained, only twelve persons
commanding a wharf, which was just south of had been killed in Roxbury, and seven on the
the spot where now the Emancipation Group Cambridge side,
stands. The accompanying heliotype shows the four
Crowning the bluff above the marsh, and at sections of a water-color panoramic view from
the point of the present junction of Boylston Beacon Hill, thus inscribed: —
and Carver streets, there was a bastioned re- " A view of the country round Boston, taken
doubt ; and another of a square shape on the hill from Beacon hill, shewing the lines, Intrench-
where the monument now stands, some light ments, Redouts, etc. of the Rebels ; also the
3o
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Hill, at the North End, was a battery of six pieces of cannon, which com-
manded the river and Charlestown shore. There were two ficchcs where
Blackstone Square and Franklin Square are, from each of which a piece of
artillery commanded the road.1 Nor could there now be a better memorial
of the war than to restore them in those pretty grounds, and mount there
two old cannon from the many trophies of the war. Nearer Boston more
extensive works protected the Neck ; and near Dover Street was a gate-
way and other defences, of which the only memorial now is in the name of
Fort Avenue, — an insignificant alley-way.2
On May 8, on an alarm that Gage was going to march out, the minute-
men from the towns around Boston rallied at command, and the British
^^ General could see what he would meet
if he needed any lesson. On the
thirteenth, General Putnam marched
a little army of two thousand three
hundred men through Charlestown to the ferry and back, " which very much
astonished them." The affair at Hog Island, already referred to, was one of
several raids, following an order of the provincial executive that all live
stock should be removed from the islands. And in two only of these affairs
Gage lost two thousand sheep, " from under the admiral's nose," as Percy
says. He little foresaw how much he would be needing fresh provisions.3
Before a year was over, his government was shipping from England to Bos-
ton living oxen, pigs, and sheep to feed the army, only one cargo of which
Lines and Redouts of his Majesties Troops.
N. B. — These views were taken by L» Wil-
Hams of the R. W. Fuziliers,* and copied from
a Scetch of the original drawn by L' Woodd
of the same Regiment. The original drawings
are now in the possession of the King."
Mr. J. Carson Brevoort, of Brooklyn, who
gave this view to the Historical Society, in De-
cember, 1859, says he purchased it of Charles
Welford, about 1858. Mr. Brevoort says, in a
letter to the Editor : " It was the custom to send
from the foreign and plantation office all that
might be of interest to the map-makers, and I
suppose that it found its way there among such
matter."— ED.] Faden was the King's engraver.
At a sale of his effects about forty years since,
many such maps and drawings came to light. A
collection of one hundred, once belonging to
Nathan Hale, is now in the Congressional Li-
brary at Washington.
* The Welsh Fusiliers were one of the most famous
regiments in the garrison. Donkin, in his Military Collec-
tions, p. 133, tells of the " privilegeous honor1' enjoyed by
them "of passing in review preceded by a Goat with gilded
horns: " and on March i (St. David's Day), in Boston, in
'775> "the animal gave such a spring from the floor that
he dropped his rider upon the table " of the banqueting
officers, " and then, bouncing over their heads, ran to the
barracks with all his trappings, to the no small joy of the
garrison and populace."
1 [Brown's house, which figures largely in
the accounts, stood on the westerly side of
Washington Street, a little south of Blackstone
Square ; and was occupied by the British as an
advanced post, when Majors Tupper and Crane,
with a party of volunteers, attacked it, July 8,
and, driving off the occupants, burned the build-
ings. — ED.]
2 MS. notes of Hon. James T. Austin. [In
March, 1860, workmen in digging for a drain
opposite Williams Market laid bare a consider-
able section of the foundations of the old de-
fences The plan of the Neck lines by Mifflin,
and of the Peninsula, by Trumbull, which are
shown in the accompanying heliotype, are de-
scribed with other plans in the Introduction to
the present volume The views of the British
lines on the Neck, looking out and in, given
also in heliotype in this chapter, follow some
engraved representations published to accom-
pany a series of coast charts by DesBarres.
— En.]
8 Gage in his despatches was always blaming
Graves, the admiral, who was at k-ngth removed
before the end of the year In King George's
note to North, ordering the removal, he said
he thought the admiral's removal as necessary
as that of " the mild general," — his name for
Gage.
at •.
Explanations.
.J,, '(,:„„/•»,/</,:
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4
COL. TRUMBULL'S PLAN, 1775.
-
-•••
'"'•'"-•...^^C"
' - • • , • . -• - •
MIFFLIN'S PLAN OF THE BRITISH FORTIFICATIONS ON BOSTON NECK.
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.
8l
ever arrived. " The English channel is white with sheep which have been
thrown overboard," says a contemporary account.
The narratives of the time show the exuberant enthusiasm of recruits, to
whom war is a novelty. A party at Noddle's Island captured a barge be-
7
/
longing to a man-of-war. They carried it to Cambridge in triumph ; and
on June 5 took it to Roxbury in a cart, with the sails up and three men in
it. " It was marched round the meeting-house while the engineer fired the
cannon for joy." On the next day Generals Thomas and Heath went to lay
out a place at Dorchester Point, with a view to entrenchments.
Through these sixty days, between the battles of Lexington and Bunker
Hill, there appear to have been occasional passages in and out of the town ;
but care was in all cases taken that no military or other
stores should pass. On May 25 Gage received large
reinforcements. The Government also sent him three
generals, — Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne,1 who all came in the "Cerberus."
The wags called them the three
" bow-wows." Gage was now bet-
ter fitted for aggressive movements.
On June 12, he issued his celebrated
proclamation, greatly ridiculed at
the time, in which he offered pardon to all but Samuel Adams and John
Hancock.
Of course he saw the importance of securing Dorchester Heights and
Charlestown, quite as distinctly as did the Patriot leaders. Burgoyne says
that it was agreed that
they should land at the
Point and occupy Dor-
chester Heights on Sun-
day, June 18. Before that
time the American troops had
more than once been called
out by alarms in this direction. The provincial executive were apprised of
this plan, and in consequence selected the night of June 16, to fortify Bunker
1 [There is a contemporary engraving of Burgoyne in the Political Magazine, December,
1780. — ED.]
VOL. III. — II.
82
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Hill on the northern side of the harbor. At their order General Ward sent
a detachment from Cambridge, which reached Bunker Hill about ten at
night. It consisted of Prescott's, Frye's, and
SI X^r // ^ // Bridge's regiments, under Colonel Prescott,1
Jw/ ** f/fS*Jt~d G^r^r an<^ a Party °f Connecticut men under Cap-
* ^ tain Knowlton. It was a moonlight night,
and clear. On the top of Bunker Hill they were only a mile from the Eng-
lish battery on Copp's Hill. Prescott called the field-officers together and
showed them his orders. At that
late moment they were in doubt
whether to fortify the summit
where they were, or to proceed
less than half a mile nearer Bos-
ton to Breed's Farm, where the
hill fell off suddenly toward the south, and where they could better annoy
the English shipping, and more readily command the town. The consulta-
tion took much time, but at last the bolder course was adopted, under pres-
sure of Gridley,2 the engineer officer, who said he must work somewhere.
The determination is now justified by the highest military authority.3 Had
1 [Here is a token of preparation : —
" MAJOR BARBER, — Please to deliver to Cap-
tain Densmore 350 rounds and 30 flints.
"WM. PRESCOTT, COL'.!-
"June 1 6, 1775."
The original is in Mellen Chamberlain's man-
uscript collection. The tradition is that the lead
pipes of Christ Church, Cambridge, were melted
or pounded into slugs at this time. — ED.]
- [The best account of Richard Gridley, of
Louisburg fame, is contained in an oration by D.
T. V. Huntoon delivered at Canton, Massachu-
setts, in 1877. He was the son of Richard Grid-
ley, a brother of Jeremy Gridley (see Mr. Morse's
chapter on the "Bench and Bar" in Vol. IV.),
and was born Jan. 3, 1710-11. Gridley played a
distinguished part at Louisburg, and in the later
campaigns against the French. He had removed
from Boston to Canton about 1773. — ED.]
3 [Various contemporary maps of the battle
are noted in the Introduction to this volume.
The annexed plan indicates the position of the
redoubt and the breastwork in relation to the
present Monument Square and the monument,
following a plan given by T. W. Davis in the
Bunker Hill Monument ^.fj0. Proc. 1875. — ED.]
Concord
St
Mo n u m o n I
1 HI t» FT! AIV AVA
a
E
^
c
Square
Lexington
SIEGE OF BOSTON, 1775-76.
/,//•>» /f/fl //„•„</,,!,,,',.• _ .:,/ //,///• .
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.
the higher hill only been fortified, the English troops, to attack it, could
have been formed without molestation under cover of the lower hill. Short-
time shells, such as would now be dropped on such a party, were not then
used.
Fairly at work on Breed's farm, Gridley laid out his redoubt skilfully.
It measured eight rods on the longest side, which fronted Charlestovvn ; the
other sides were shorter. A breastwork ran about a hundred yards toward
the north, to a marshy spot which was relied on as a sufficient check against
troops. From midnight till eleven o'clock in the morning the men worked
steadily, and the intrenching-tools were then sent back to Putnam, who per-
severed through the day in the true military policy of fortifying the upper
summit also. Once and again through the night men went down to the
water's edge, and could hear the "All's well" of the watch on the English
vessels. It was after daybreak when Linzee, the commander of the " Falcon "
which lay in the stream, opened his fire on it, and waked the sleeping town.1
Gridley returned Linzee's fire from his wretched field-pieces. Gage soon
ordered Linzee to cease firing, and, having conferred with his associates,
determined to attack the works before they should be strengthened.2
With a bold resolution, — of which there is more than one instance among
British commanders in the beginning of wars, — Gage made the fatal de-
cision, in spite of Clinton's remonstrance, to attack these works in front.3
With his naval force, by which he could have commanded Charlestown
Neck, he could, perhaps, have cut off the American party without the
loss of a man.
1 Captain Linzee was the grandfather of
the wife of William H. Prescott the historian,
who was the grandson of Colonel Prescott. The
two swords worn by these two officers on that
morning were bequeathed by Mr. Prescott to
the Massachusetts Historical Society, and have
long been peacefully crossed in its Library, as
they were earlier in his. [They are represented
in the frontispiece of this volume. See Tick-
nor's Life of W. H. Prescott, and Dr. William
Prescott's Prescott Memorial, 1870. — ED.]
- [Colonel Prescott, observing Gage's dispo-
sition, despatched Major John Brooks to head-
quarters for reinforcements, and he reached
General Ward about ten o'clock.
There is a portrait of Governor Brooks, with
a sketch of his life, in Drake's Cincinnati Society.
See also N. E. Hist, and Geneal. Reg. July, 1865.
ED.]
3 [Gage having overruled the decision of a
majority of his council to attack in the rear, and
bound to hazard an attack in front, which he
deemed more military and prudent, issued the
order, a fac-simile of which may be found on
the next page. This fac-simile follows the entry
in an orderly book, preserved in the cabinet of
the Mass. Historical Society, entitled Lieutenant
and Adjutant Waller's orderly-book, commencing
at Boston, the 22d May, and ending the twenty-sixth
day of January, 1776; a folio parchment-bound
MS. which really begins " Plymouth [England],
March 25, 1775, on board the 'Betsy' transport,"
with "rules and directions to be observed on
board the transport for Boston." Then follow
" General Gage's and Major Pitcairn's orders,
Boston Camp." A new section begins: "June
18 [1775]. Charles Town Hill, Gen). Howe's or-
ders ; " and the next day the following : " General
orders, Head Quarters, Boston, June 19, 1775.
The Commander-in-chief returns his most grate-
ful thanks to Major Gen!. Howe for the extraordi-
nary exertion of his military abilities on the I7th
inst. He returns his thanks also to Maj.-Gen.
Clinton and Brig.-Gen. Pigot for the share they
took in the success of the day ; as well as to Lieut.-
Cols. Nisbet, Abercrombie, Gunning, and Clark ;
Majors Butler, Williams, Bruce, Tupper, Spend-
love, Smelt, and Mitchel ; and the rest of the
officers and soldiers who, by remarkable ef-
84
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
General Howe was entrusted with the enterprise. With two thousand
men he crossed at noon to Moulton's Point, embraced within the present
Navy Yard.1 As soon as the boats could cross a second time, General
Pigot, his second in command, moved slowly to the left, throwing out
strong flanking parties upon the redoubt. Up to this time his men had
been under the cover of the bold hill at Moulton's Point. While Howe
waited for his second party, he had reconnoitred the position so far as to
forts of courage and gallantry, overcame every doubt and strong-hold on the Heights of Charles
disadvantage and drove the rebels from their re- Town and gained a complete victory." The same
-
fkt. \/AfivL.{O4AJL{£Llj1y j£j fflOA.t-'L to
\GCI tnijj~ jjjd'L&ut. >7u**^
day a general order read: "A return of the
killed, wounded, and missing of the different
Corps in the late action of the I7th to be given
in as soon as possible. The officers to be men-
tioned nomanly [? nominally] in these returns."
The orderly-books of Generals Gage and Howe
are preserved among the Carleton papers in the
Royal Institution in London ; and extracts from
them, made in 1840, are in the Sparks MSS.,
vol. xlv. — ED.]
l [The lower ship-house marks the beach
where these troops left their boats. The rein-
forcements landed in front of the present marine
barracks. The " Falcon " ship of war covered
the landing at the points; and the "Lively," of
twenty guns and one hundred and thirty men, was
anchored in front of the present Navy Yard, and
covered the landings of the reinforcements.
Many of the slain were buried within the dock-
yard enclosure. — ED.]
SIEGE OF BOSTON, 1775-76.
V ts»> ,r '.'.:•• /
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON. 85
see that it might be possible to move along the shore of the Mystic River,
and thus attack the American entrenchments on the rear. From the marshy
point already spoken of, northward to the river,
the only line of defence was what has long been
popularly called the " rail-fence," erected by
Knowlton and his men, who had been sent out
by Prescott to cover his left flank. They had
protected themselves, in farmer fashion, by putting
up a line of rail-fence parallel with one already standing, and packing the
space between with new-mown hay. Howe's contempt for this unmilitary
breastwork cost him dear in the end. So soon as he was reinforced he
moved westward with his right wing along the river-side, while Pigot, with
the left wing, attempted the breastwork and redoubt.
All along the American lines the order had been given which the officers
remembered in the memoirs of Frederick's wars : " Wait till you can see
the whites of their eyes."1 They were bidden, in the redoubt, to hold their
fire till the English came within eight rods. Pigot's men advanced slowly,
firing as they marched. Their shot passed over the heads of the Amer-
icans. It must be remembered that most of the Englishmen were as new
to battle as their enemies. Some eager soldiers in the American lines were
disposed to reply ; but their officers even ran along the parapet and kicked
up their guns. Prescott told those who could hear him, that the " red-coats "
would never reach the redoubt if they would obey him. Sure enough,
when the order to fire came, the issue was terrible. For a few minutes the
fire was returned, but for only a few. Pigot was obliged to order a retreat.
" He was staggered," says an English account at the time, " and retreated
by orders." Some of his men ran even to the landing. Burgoyne's letter,
written for publication,2 also says " he was staggered ; " and reinforcements
were sent to him.
Howe's fate with the right wing was similar; but probably his com-
panies suffered more severely. They could not advance by any road, and
were obliged to climb the rail-fences which parted thfe fields, or to break
them down. Knowlton and Putnam were begging and commanding their
men not to fire. A single shot, intended to draw the enemy's fire, obtained
its end. Howe's companies fired like troops on parade, and fired too high.
When the word was given to the Connecticut men, the well aimed shots
from the rail-fence made terrible havoc ; the English wavered, broke, and
retreated. Many of the exultant American soldiers leaped over the fence
to follow them, and had to be held back by their officers.
Prescott praised and encouraged his men. Putnam rode back to Charles-
town Neck to urge on reinforcements. Men had been sent from Cam-
1 Prince Charles, when he cut through the was remembered twelve years after at the battle
Austrian army, in retiring from Jagendorf, gave of Prague, when the general Prussian order was,
this order to his infantry : " Silent, till you see " By push of bayonets ; no firing till you see the
the whites of their eyes." This was on May whites of their eyes."
22, 1745 ; and this order, so successful that day, 2 Addressed to Lord Stanley.
86
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
bridge, who dared not cross the Neck, raked as it
was by the fire of English vessels in the river.2
At Howe's command, meanwhile, Burgoyne, who
was in the English battery on Copp's Hill,3 set fire
to Charlestown with red-hot shot.4 Howe prob-
ably supposed that the houses were cover for
American soldiers. But, in fact, Prescott had few
if any men to spare outside of his works.
Howe re-formed his broken lines after some
pause ; sent to Boston for proper balls for his
field-pieces ; 5 and, under the smoke and fire of
1 [This bit of writing represents, perhaps, the only relic like it
of the battle-field. It was seemingly written hastily, with whatever
might serve for a pen, on a slip of paper torn from the margin of a
book, and was not long ago found among some loose papers at the
State House. Joseph Ward was of Newton, was made an aid by-
General Heath on the day following Lexington, and at this time
was aid to General Ward; and so distinguished himself at Bunker
Hill that when his conduct was subsequently reported to Wash-
ington, he gave him a pair of pistols, which are now owned by Mr.
D. Ward A portrait of him is in the possession of R. R. Bishop ;
and a miniature by Dunkelery, 1789, is owned by Mrs. Osgood of
Cohasset. (Drake's Landmarks of Middlesex, p. 349.) He con-
tinued to be General Ward's aid when this General commanded
later in Boston, and his signatures to official documents, written
under less exciting circumstances, indicate a good penman. Dr.
Smith in his Hist, of Nciuton, p. 343, says that Ward was, in 1775,
a master in one of the Boston schools, and, seeing the troops in
motion on April 19, left the town for Newton, where he got a gun
and hastened to Concord. On June 17 he "rode over Charles-
town Neck, through a cross-fire of the enemy's batteries, to exe-
cute an order for General Ward." — ED.]
2 [Gage was afterward blamed for not putting his gun-boats
on the Mystic also. — ED.]
3 [The defence on Copp's Hill, at the time of the battle, was
an earthwork made in part of barrels filled with sand, and mounted
six heavy guns and howitzers. — ED.]
4 [Dr. John C. Warren owns a small oil-painting which is sup-
posed to represent the burning of the town. An officer is direct-
ing an incendiary. Women are flying with affright. The story
usually goes that some men landed from the war-ships to assist in
starting the conflagration. The painting is thought to resemble
Trumbull's style. Dr. H. J. Bigelow found it many years ago,
labelled as a Trumbull and called " The Burning of Charlestown,"
in a dealer's shop in Boston, and gave it to Dr. J. Mason War-
ren.— ED.]
6 But never got them. The master of ordnance was " making
love to the school-master's daughter." The guns were served
with grape.
.THE SIEGE OF BOSTON. 87
the burning town, moved to the attack a second time. The result in both
attacks was the same as before. Colonel Prescott thought it even more
destructive than at first. The officers remonstrated ; even goaded the men
with their swords. The dead in some cases lay within a few yards of the
works. Putnam said : " I never saw such carnage." Howe, who had pro-
mised his men to march at their head, held his promise. He bore a
charmed life. Three times he was left alone. In the several attacks made
by his column, one company of the Fifty-second lost every man as killed
or wounded. The English broke so completely that the fugitives filled
the boats. For a considerable time no further attack was made. Many of
the American officers thought the day was their own ; but the regiments
ordered from Cambridge, to reinforce them, did not arrive. After the battle
several officers were tried for cowardice on account of their slowness in
bringing relief at this time. Howe sent for reinforcements. Four hundred
marines, under Small, were sent to him ; and with them came General
Clinton. But for this help he would have lost the battle.1
Howe now, for the first time, bade his men lay aside their knapsacks,
move in columns, and trust to the bayonets. More important was the
discovery which he had made, with a soldier's eye, that the north end of
the breastwork was uncovered, and his resolution to advance his field-pieces
far enough to rake it. He made this his object now, only demonstrating
against the terrible fence on the American left, without approaching it;
and, with these skilful dispositions, moved forward on both attacks for the
third time. They were wholly successful. Howe himself led the attack
on the breastwork. Prescott recognized him, and was soldier enough to
know it would succeed ; but he held and encouraged his men. Few of
them had three rounds of powder left, but he instructed them to hold
their fire till the British were within twenty yards. This they did, and
the enemy faltered under the volley,2 but reached the ramparts and
were sheltered by them. Pitcairn, commanding the marines, was here
mortally wounded. As, man by man, the Englishmen struggled over the
redoubt,3 Howe's artillery swept the breastwork which ran from it. His
1 [Dr. John Jeffries crossed with the rein- The Regulars heard it, turned about, charged
forcements of four hundred men that Gage sent their bayonets, and forced the entrenchments."
— ED.]
3 Lord Rawdon, who was one of them,
and was afterward popularly and probably
incorrectly said to have carried the colors,
was afterward Earl of Moira, governor of
India from 1812 to 1818, and a favorite of
George IV.
over. See N. E. Hist, and Geneal. Reg., Jan. [The reader is referred to the frontispiece
1861, p. 15. — ED.] for what is considered a contemporary view of
2 [General Greene, writing from the Roxbury the battle, as seen from Beacon Hill. The
Camp the next day (June 18), speaks of the re- original sketch is in the possession of Dr. Tho-
pulse the third time, and adds a bit of camp mas Addis Emmet, of New York, and was first
gossip : " It is thought they would have gone off, brought to the attention of the public in Harper's
but some of the Provincials imprudently called Monthly, in 1875.
out to their officers that their powder was gone. The designer for the cut followed a careful
88
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
leading companies soon passed round its northern end. Prescott, to avoid
being shut in, gave the order to retreat. Most of his men had fired every
round of powder.
The retreating men passed between two successful English columns,
which hardly dared fire, however, as their own friends were mingled with
their enemies. Yet Warren was killed at this juncture, Gridley wounded,
as was Bridge, also, for the second time.
The rail-fence, where Stark commanded, had not been attacked seri-
ously. The men here held their ground, and covered the retreat of their
tracing of it which was kindly lent by Mr.
Benson J. Lossing.
The spectator is supposed to be on Beacon
Hill, one hundred and thirty-eight feet above the
sea, and the higher hill, Bunker Hill, beyond
which the white smoke rises, is one hundred
and ten feet high, and a little less than a mile
and a half distant. Breed's Hill, where the re-
doubt is, is sixty-two feet above the sea. The
two summits were one hundred and thirty rods
apart.
Frothingham, Siege of Boston, p. 121, gives a
profile view of the Charlestown peninsula at this
time, copied from a contemporary drawing. It
is reproduced by Lossing in his Field-Book, and
in Bryant and Gay's United States, iii. 377. The
Pennsylvania Magazine, September, 1775, has a
folding "very elegant engraving of the late battle
at Charlestown, June 17, 1775," as the title-page
describes it. Barnard's New Complete and Au-
thentic History of England has a " view of the
attack on Bunker's Hill, with the burning of
AFTER THE BATTLE.
The annexed cut is from the same source.
The redoubt is seen on the top of the hill ; and
of the broken fences a British account says:
" These posts and rails were too strong for the
columns to push down, and the march was so
retarded by getting over them, that the next
morning they were found studded with bullets,
not a hand's breadth from each other."
These sketches were taken for Lord Rawdon,
then on Gage's staff, and remained in the pos-
session of his descendants till the dispersion of
the late Marquis of Hastings's library, when
they were bought by Dr. Emmet.
Charlestown, June 17, 1775;" drawn by Mr.
Millar; engraved by Lodge (u£ X 8 inches).
There is a view of the hill-top, with the monu-
ment erected on Bunker Hill by the Freemasons
to the memory of Warren in 1794, in the Analectic
Magazine, March, 1818; and it is reproduced in
the Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1875, p. 65. A view of
the monument only is given in Snow's History
of Boston, p. 309 ; and one is also given in the
frontispiece of the present volume. Other early
views of the battle are described in Winsor's
Readers' Handbook of the American Revolution,
p. 58. — ED.]
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON. 89
less successful comrades. They were withdrawn in regular order, after the
fugitives from the redoubt passed them. At the summit of Bunker Hill,
Putnam attempted to rally the army behind the works he had been building.
He stood by a cannon till the bayonets
were almost upon him ; but the retreat
could not be checked, and the English
troops in triumph took possession of the
hill about five o'clock in the afternoon.
Clinton advised Howe to push on to
Cambridge. Ward, on his part, dreaded such an attack ; but Howe satis-
fied himself with turning two field-pieces on the retiring enemy.
Prescott was mad with disappointment. He reported to Ward, and told
him that with three fresh regiments, with bayonets and powder, he would
take the hill again ; but Ward was only too well pleased if he were left
without attack.1 Ward knew, what he would not tell to any man even to
save his reputation, that he had in store that day only sixty-nine hundred
pounds of powder, — not half a pound for every soldier in his command.
It was hardly an hour and a half between the first attack and the victo-
rious capture of the summit of Bunker Hill. In that period the attacking
force had lost two hundred and twenty-four killed, and eight hundred and
thirty wounded. If, as Gage said, he had about two thousand men in the
attack, this would have been a loss of more than one half the force ; but in fact
his full force was somewhat larger than this. Of the killed and wounded,
one hundred and fifty-seven were officers. The American loss was one
hundred and fifty killed, two hundred and seventy wounded, and thirty taken
prisoners.2
The impression then made on Howe and Clinton governed them through
the war. They never again led troops against intrenched men. It will be
found thus that this first battle, in the terrible lesson it taught, was really
the battle decisive of the seven years which followed.3 We now know that
the English officers thought their privates misbehaved. It is certain that
in many instances they ran, — even to their boats. But when one reads that
every man was killed or wounded in one company, he does not ask many
questions as to the courage of the survivors. Burgoyne says in a private
letter to Lord Rochford : " All the wounds of the officers were not received
1 [The apprehension that the result of the care of their wounds, or any resting place but
battle would instigate Gage to send a force to the pavements, until the next day, when they ex-
disperse the Provincial Congress, is shown by changed it for the jail, since which we hear they
an order passed at Watertown, June 1 8, direct- are civilly treated." — Abigail Adams to John
ing the secretary to look after the records and Adams, July 5, 1775. The Congress at Water-
papers of that body, and to have a horse ready town, June 27, 1775, requested General Thomas
"for that purpose in any emergency." (Massa- "to supply our wounded friends in Boston, pris-
chusetts Archives, cxxxviii. p. 159.) "It is ex- oners, with fresh meat, in case he can convey
pected they will come out over the Neck to-night, it to them and to them only." — Massachusetts
and a dreadful battle must ensue." — Abigail Archives, cxxxviii. p. 174. — ED.]
Adams to John Adams, June 18, 1775. — ED ] 3 [Creasy, Decisive Battles of the Wbr/</, gives
2 [" Our prisoners were brought over to the Saratoga that pre-eminence ; but Washington at
Long Wharf, and there lay all night, without any once recognized the importance of Bunker Hill.
VOL. III. — 12.
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
from the enemy ; " but he begs that this shall not pass, even in a whisper,
to any but the king.
All that night and all the next day, carts, wagons, and chaises, bearing
wounded men, were passing from the wharves to hospitals, barracks, and
lodging-houses. The tradition of the next generation told ghastly stories
of blood trickling on the pavement from the wagons which bore wounded
men.
A hot summer followed upon this battle-day, which was the hottest of all.
Washington, on July 3, beneath the now historic elm, took the command of
the American army, and made his headquarters for a few days in the house
belonging to the president of the college ; he then moved them to the famous
mansion now the home of Longfellow. The blockade by land became closer
than ever. Privateers audaciously cut off vessels approaching with stores.1
While few of those events passed which work their way into general history,
or even light up historical novels, the diaries and letters of the time show
that there was not a week without its subject for excitement or, at least,
conversation.2
On July 12, Major Greaton, of Roxbury, burned the hay which the
English had made on Long Island. On the twentieth, Major Vose of
Heath's regiment dismantled and burned the light-house, and made a raid
on Point Shirley. Another party, under Major Tupper, afterward drove off
the force which tried to rebuild it.3 On July 1 1, Lee, in Cambridge, began a
correspondence with Burgoyne ; the first in a series of flirtations with old
loves, which ripened into treason. Desertions from Gage's army, which on
October 10 became Howe's, were not frequent. Howe says that they lost
1 [Washington early commissioned (October,
1775) John Manly as captain, who sailing from
Marblehead in the schooner " Lee," in No-
vember, 1775, captured military stores, which
soon were in the Cambridge Camp. Washing-
ton had not long before written to -Congress
that the "fortunate capture of an ordnance ship
would give new life to the camp." Manly died
in 1793, in his house at the North End. There
is a portrait of him in Treble's History of the
Flag. — ED.] The earliest commission to priva-
teers is dated September 2.
2 " They carry off cattle under the guns of
the fleet." — Earl Percy to his father.
3 [The light-house, at this time standing at the
harbor's entrance, was the original structure of
1716, modified somewhat by repairs in 1757,
when it had been injured by fire. It became,
early in the siege, an object of concern for both
sides ; and more than one expedition, conducted
by the Provincials, destroyed the destructible
parts of it. Washington, in general orders,
Aug. I, 1775, thanked Major Tupper and his
men "for gallant and soldier-like behavior in
possessing themselves of the enemy's posts at
the light-house."
Details of various exploits in the harbor will
be found in Frothingham's Siege of Boston, p. 1 10;
Evacuation Memorial, p. 142 ; Pattee's History
of Braintree and Qnincy. In the Massachu-
setts Archives, cxxxviii., are various state-
ments of depredations of the Regulars upon
stock and other property upon the islands.
Such a schedule of property thus lost, by
Joshua Henshaw of Boston, is at p. 415 of
that volume. Major John Phillips, who
was commander of the Castle from 1759, had
surrendered the charge on Hutchinson's order,
which in the summer of 1770 took it from the
care of the Province and placed it in the keep-
ing of the troops. The same officer was later
made fort-major of the fortress. Mass. Hist.
Soc. Proc., February, 1872, p. 207. After the
evacuation, Sept. i, 1776, Lieut-Colonel Revere
was directed by General Heath to take command
of Castle Island. N. E. Hist, and Geneal. Reg.,
July, 1876. — ED-!
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON. 9!
but thirty-three men by desertion through the seven months after April 19.
Of every one of these desertions the American accounts give some detail.
Each deserter had his romance with which to gild his reception. One of
them, in July, said that Gage had but nine hundred men well enough to be
under arms.1
A private note from Putnam to Moncrieffe, an old fellow-soldier, accom-
panies a present of fresh meat, which Moncrieffe loyally sent to the hos-
pitals. Before August was over, Gage was glad to renew the treaty for
sending out the poor civilians from Boston ; and he and Howe sent out
several parties after this time. It will be remembered, however, that Boston
was still a town of gardens, and that the people were not unused to pro-
viding their own summer vegetables from their own land. Gage made the
admiral send marauding expeditions up and down the coast for sheep and
other provisions ; but even a raid of a thousand sheep went but little way
in feeding twenty thousand hungry people.2
Dr. Andrew Eliot, who remained in town, in a letter of July 31, thanks
his parishioner, Daniel Parker, for two quarters of fresh mutton which he
had sent from Salem. He distributed broth from it to thirty or forty sick
people. The writer of these lines, at this late day, expresses the thanks of
his great-great-grandmother for her share. At an auction sale of oxen and
sheep, picked up on the coast by the marauding navy, cattle brought from
fifteen to thirty-four pounds, and sheep thirty shillings and upwards. To the
Patriots these prices seemed enormous. As early as July the English had
begun to kill their milch cows, and the beef was sold at forty or fifty cents
the pound. In the winter a camp-follower named Winifred McOwen re-
ceived one hundred lashes for killing the town bull and selling the beef.3
So soon as the Government received Gage's account of Bunker Hill he
was recalled. It was under the pretence that he was to be sent back in
the next spring; but really he was disgraced, and he was never appointed
to command again.4 Howe took the command. He and Gage had both
recommended that Boston should be abandoned and New York taken in-
stead. Lord Dartmouth, for the Government, expressed the same idea as
1 [We have no estimate of the desertions 2 " And what have you got, by all your
from the American camp, but the British orderly- designing,
book notes their occurrence. This from Adju- But a town, without dinner, to sit down
tant Waller's : — and dine in ? " — Ballad of the Time.
„,, 3 [Forage became scarce by midsummer in
"8 July, 1775. The advanced sentries not to suffer
those of the rebels during the night to come forward from '775- We find in Waller s orderly-book : —
their day posts ; if they see them advance, they must call « Ig ju]Vi I?75 The officers of tne army are desired to
and order them to return to their former station, which if send their horses to ^^ at Char,estown, as they cannot
they disobey, the sentries are immediately to inform the at present be supplied with forage."
corporal of the guard of their having come forward ; but
they are not to fire unless they see occasion in their own Major Donkm, in his Military Collections,
defence, or to alarm the guard. The advanced guards and p. 113, says : " Caesar, in the African war, fed his
sentries are to fire on any of the rebels they perceive en- cavalry with sea-wrack, or jingle, washed well in
deavoring to prevent deserters coming in." fresh wat£r Thig m;ght haye been ft gQod ^
Lists of deserters from Massachusetts regi- stitute for hay at Boston, which was very scarce
ments for the later period, 1777-80, are in Mass, in 1775." — ED.]
Revolutionary Rolls, ix. But these men did not, 4 [Gage sailed for England, Oct. 10, 1775.
like the English, pass over to the enemy. — ED.] Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1876, p. 316. General W.
92 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
early as September. When Howe was afterward asked why he did not then
abandon Boston, he said he had no transports ; but he had as many in Octo-
ber as he had in the next March, when the evacuation came.1
A census, taken by Gage's order in July, showed a civilian population of
6,573. The army was then 13,500 strong. The privates were a wretched
set. The sternest discipline did not keep them in order. Irish in large
numbers, Scotch, German, and English were cooped up together. Thefts,
robberies, and nameless insults were daily perpetrated. As early as the sixth
of June, Waller's orderly-book contains this order: "The commanding offi-
cer [Percy] observes such profligacy and dissipation and want of subordi-
nation, that he orders a roll to be called four times a day." In a week, —
" he is sorry to take notice that the tents and camp furniture are in the
most shameful and filthy condition." Drunkenness and licentiousness were
not checked by such punishments as eight hundred and a thousand lashes,
inflicted by order of courts-martial. Five hundred lashes were very frequent.
Indeed, the cat was in use daily. Winifred McOwen, the woman spoken of
above as killing the bull, was sentenced to receive her hundred lashes on
the bare back, in the most public places of the town.
The civilian population was steadily decreasing by death, and the occa-
sional parties sent out by the English generals.2 On September 27 news
came of a change of the admiral, and of more reinforcements. In October,
so anxious was the dread of attack, that for several nights the army was held
in readiness to resist it. As winter came on, many houses before exempted
were seized for barracks. As late as November 9, some of the regiments
were under canvas. On November 19 a ship arrived with fowls, sheep, etc.,
probably the only arrival of the large stores of this kind shipped from
England. Late in November, Manly, in an American privateer, took the
" Nancy," an ordnance ship, with large stores of ammunition. Howe wrote
home that now the rebels had the means to burn the town he was afraid
they would do so, and the contemporary correspondence is full of propo-
sals " to smoke out the pirates."
The " pirates " made themselves as comfortable as they could. Some of
the old historical buildings were burned for firewood, — Winthrop's house,
alas ! among them, and no one, in a hundred and fifty years, had made a
picture of it. Some of the grenadiers were quartered in the West Church.
Two regiments of infantry were in Brattle Street meeting-house,3 and in
H. Sumner married a niece of Gage, and came 1775, forbidding specie, beyond five pounds, to
into possession of an original portrait of him, be carried out of Boston by any one departing,
which he had engraved for his History of East — ED.]
Boston, and bequeathed to the State. It is now 8 [It is but a few years since this old land-
in the State Library. — ED.] mark disappeared, which
1 [Howe kept up an occasional cannonading ;
i . i j .1 • . r " Wore on its bosom, as a bride might do,
but he made no threatening movement for a _, . , , .. ' „
The iron breastpin which the rebels threw,
month, till, November 9, he sent a raiding party
to Lechmere point to steal cattle, which failed as Holmes phrases it. The ball, thrown from the
of its purpose. Moore's Diary of the American Cambridge shore, hit the front and fell to the
Revolution, i. 166. — ED.] pavement, and was subsequently picked up and
2 [Howe issued a proclamation, October 28, lodged in the place where it struck. A model
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON. 93
the sugar-house adjoining it. " The pillars saved " the church from being
a riding school, as the record says with reference to the " Pillar of fire."
The Old South meeting-house was used for a riding school by the Seven-
teenth Dragoons. The officers still had their horses, and they got up
sleighing parties within the narrow limits of the town, as winter closed in.1
The king's birthday was celebrated with enthusiasm. Even Patriots still
pretended that it was the ministry they were fighting, and drank the health
of the king, who was really their most bigoted enemy. The Patriot gentle-
men made a point of maintaining the most sedulous outward courtesy to
the officers of their king. Faneuil Hall was at first used as a storehouse
for furniture and other property ; but it was cleaned out for a theatre when
General Burgoyne, and his friends among the officers, needed it for that
purpose. In September they performed Zara, a tragedy translated from
Voltaire, and not yet wholly forgotten, thanks to Miss Edgeworth's Helen.
Burgoyne wrote the prologue and epilogue. The female parts were taken
by Boston young ladies, whose names have not come down to us. The play
was repeated several times, the profits being devoted to the widows and
children of the soldiers. Burgoyne has the credit of writing another play,
The Blockade of Boston, which was performed after he had sailed for home.
It was on January 8, when this play was in full progress, and an actor
ridiculing General Washington was on the stage, that a sergeant rushed
in, crying: "The Yankees are attacking the works on Bunker Hill." This
seemed a part of the play, till the highest officer present, an aide-de-camp,2
ordered, "Officers to their posts ! " The play was at an end. Major Knowl-
ton, who had commanded at the rail-fence on the day of the battle, had
renewed his visit to Bunker Hill, burned a bakehouse and some other
buildings, and carried off several prisoners.3 The Patriot ladies, who had
refused to go to the play, made merry over the misadventures of their less
squeamish sisters, who had to come home, frightened, without their gallant
escorts.
General Sullivan had attempted this raid the week before, but had been
disappointed because the ice was not strong enough to bear his men. The
mildness of the winter caused constant annoyance to Washington, who was
now provided with ammunition, and was eager to cross the ice on the Back
Bay and attack the town. He had insulted it by floating batteries once or
twice, but with no serious attack.4 Why Howe, fairly crowded as he was,
had never renewed his own plan for taking Dorchester Heights, does not
appear; but in February, 1776, he writes to Lord Dartmouth: 5 —
of the old meeting-house, showing the ball in 4 [Abigail Adams writes, Oct. 21, 1775: "A
place, is now in the gallery of the Historical So- floating battery of ours went out two nights ago,
ciety. — ED.] and moved near the town, and then discharged
1 Hon. J. T. Austin's MS. notes. their guns. Some of the balls went into the
2 Not General Howe, as an exaggerated tra- Workhouse ; some through the tents in the Com-
dition has it. mon ; and one through the sign of the Lamb
3 iSee contemporary accounts given in Tavern." — ED.]
Moore's Diary of the American Revolution^ \. 6 MS. despatch, preserved in the state-paper
193, 199. — ED.] office, London.
94 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
" It being ascertained that the enemy intended to take possession of Dorchester
Height or Neck, a detachment was ordered from Castle William on the 1 3th of Feb-
ruary under the command of Lieut.-Colonel Leslie, and another of grenadiers and light
infantry commanded by Major Musgrave, with directions to pass on ice, and destroy
every house and every kind of cover on that peninsula, — which was executed, and six
of the enemy's guard taken prisoners."
From this despatch it appears that the ice had at last formed, for which
Washington had been waiting. He at once called a council of war, and
urged an assault on the town by crossing over the ice from Cambridge and
Roxbury; but his field-officers generally were unfavorable to the enter-
prise, much to Washington's disgust and hardly concealed indignation, and
he therefore reluctantly abandoned it. In its place he made immediate
dispositions to seize Dorchester Heights and to take Noddle's Island, now
known as East Boston. He asked the government of Massachusetts to call
out the militia of the neighborhood. This was done, and ten regiments
were called in. Washington himself says: " These men came in at the ap-
pointed time, and manifested the greatest alertness and determined resolu-
tion to act like men engaged in the cause of freedom."
Preparations were at once made by General Ward, at Roxbury, in col-
lecting fascines, and what in the military language of that day were called
" chandeliers," a kind of foundation for the fascines, with which were to be
built the works on Dorchester Heights. The ground was supposed to be
frozen too hard for entrenching. On Saturday, Sunday, and Monday nights,
March 2, 3, and 4, 1776, a cannonading was kept up from Cobble Hill,
Lechmere's Point, and Lamb's Dam in Roxbury, to divert the attention of
the English troops and drown the noise of carts crossing the frozen ground.
As soon as the firing began on Monday evening, General Thomas moved
from Roxbury to South Boston with twelve hundred men. To deaden the
noise of the wagons the men strewed the road with straw, and wound
wisps about the wheels. Before morning they had thrown up formidable
works. The English of the fleet and of the army were entirely surprised
when that morning broke, for a dense fog had favored the Americans at their
work. On Tuesday evening, intending to storm the newly built works,
Howe sent down three thousand men under Percy to the Castle, to attack
on that side ; but while his troops were embarking from the island a violent
storm came up, which lasted till eight o'clock the next day and wholly
broke up the design. Before night of the sixth, evacuation was determined
on. Percy's letter to his father, of that date, says : " It is determined to
evacuate this town. I believe Halifax is to be our destination." He then
knew, and Howe had determined, that the works on Dorchester Heights
were not to be stormed. "An officer of distinction," in Almon's Remem-
brancer at the same date, says: "We are evacuating the town with the
utmost expedition, and are leaving behind half our worldly goods. Adieu !
I hope to embark in a few hours."
From hour to hour, however, Thomas was strengthening his works, which
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.
95
GENERAL HENRY KNOX.1
were now much stronger and better provided than were Prescott's works at
Bunker Hill. Knox's Ticonderoga cannon were likely to be in good service.
1 [A likeness of Knox is prefixed to the Life
of him by Samuel A. Drake. A photogravure
of what is called the panel likeness of Knox, by
Stuart, is given in Mason's S/uarf, p. 211. The
Knox papers, left to the New England Historic
Genealogical Society by the late Admiral
Thatcher, grandson of the general, are now ar-
ranged in fifty-five folio volumes, to which an
index is preparing. . ,. • account of the papers
( 1 1,464 in all), prepared by the Rev. E. F. Slafter,
has been prinfed by the society.
Knox played an important part in the siege
by conducting the expedition from Cambridge to
Ticonderoga to get some of the cannon which
had fallen into Ethan Allen's and Arnold's hands
by the capture of that post, and which Washing-
ton needed to put in his batteries, and which were
opportunely at hand when the heights at Dor-
chester Neck were to be fortified. Knox's diary
of this expedition is in the JV. E. Hist, and
Geneal. Reg., July, 1876. An inventory of the
cannon, made Dec. 10. 1775, is given in Drake's
96 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Had the attack been made, Washington relied upon Thomas to hold the
Heights, and he would himself have assaulted Boston on the western side as
soon as the English troops were engaged at South Boston. He had, at the
mouth of the Charles River, two divisions of troops in readiness, numbering
four thousand men, under the command of Greene and of Sullivan. Greene's
division was to have landed near where the Massachusetts General Hospital
grounds now are, and Sullivan's further south at the powder house, and to
seize the hill on the Common. If they were successful, these divisions were
to unite, march upon the English works at the Neck, and let in the troops
from Roxbury. Three floating batteries were to clear the way in advance
for their landing.
Washington thought well of this enterprise, and the troops would
have certainly been well led ; but it will never be known how far this
attack of four thousand men, who were to row two miles and land under
fire from the English batteries, would have succeeded.
It was only twelve months after Warren's last address in the Old South.
Washington, in his general orders, alludes to the anniversary of the Massacre.1
But as the English did not attack on their side, the American attack did
not take place. Thomas kept on strengthening his works. Washington
regarded this fortification as only preliminary to taking Nook's Hill. This
hill was the extreme northwest part of South Boston, and commanded the
south end of Boston proper. It is now wholly dug away.2
The details were made for the occupation of this lesser hill on the night
of the ninth. It was, so to speak, the Breed's Hill of Dorchester, — the
eminence nearer to the town. But on the eighth Howe sent out a flag of
truce, with a letter signed by John Scollay, Timothy Newell, Thomas Mar-
shall, and Samuel Austin, the selectmen of the town. It was addressed
to nobody, for Howe had made a point that these gentlemen should not
address " His Excellency George Washington," as they wished to do. The
letter stated officially that Howe had assured them that he was making his
preparations to withdraw, and that he would not injure the town unless he
was molested in withdrawing. Washington would not answer. Colonel
Learned, who received the paper, sent back a message that Washington
would take no notice of it ; that it was an unauthenticated paper, not obli-
gatory upon General Howe. This was all the communication which passed ;
but it was enough. The Patriots were only too glad to have the "pyrates"
Cincinnati Society, p. 544. See also Drake's Life l [While this fortifying was going on at Dor-
of Knox, p. 175; his Landmarks of Middlesex, Chester Neck, a scene of solemnity, not unmixed
p. 154; Frothingham's Siege of Boston, p. 295. with ludicrous associations, took place at Water-
After the war Knox became a resident, for a town. A meeting of the citizens of Boston had
time, of Boston, and occupied the Copley house been legally warned to listen there to an anniver-
on Beacon Hill. The mansion which he built, sary oration on the Massacre. The Rev. Peter
later, at Thomaston, Me., is figured in Scribner's Thacher delivered it, and the audience of sup-
Monthly, ix. 616. A brother of General Knox posable Bostonians applauded it. — ED.]
(Thomas Knox) was the first keeper of Boston 2 [It is shown on Pelham's map, of which a
Light, when it was rebuilt after the war. Car- heliotype is given in the Introduction to this
ter's Summer Cruise, p. 24. — ED.] volume, — there called " Foster's Hill." — ED.]
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.
97
embark ; and nothing would have justified any loss of life or of property in
hurrying them.1 On the /th Manly took two more provision ships in the
bay, and carried them into
the harbor of Cape Ann. BY HIS EXCELLENCY
On Saturday night, the
9th, a ball from the Eng-
lish killed Dr. Dole and
three men who had made
a fire on Nook's Hill.
Sunday and Monday the
bombardment continued.
On the next Sunday
morning, the i/th, Howe,
with his whole army, aid and aflift them- in their Rebellion, the Com-
sailed in seventy-eight mander in Chief cxpec"ls that all good Subjcfts
vessels. The total num- will ufe their utmoft Endeavors to have all iiuh
ber of officers and men, Articles convey 'd from this Place: Any who have
on his returns, was eight notOpportunity to convey jheirGoods under tl^n
thousand nine hundred
and six.
WILLIAM HOWE,
MAJOR GENERAL, Wc.&c.^c-
AS Linnen and WooTert Goods arc Articles
much wanted by the Rebels, and would
Care, may deliver them on Board the Ml»
f „ nerva at Hubbard's Wharf, to Crean B'rufi, lifq;
L:~i U?* mark'd with their Names, who will give a Ccrt;£-
cate of the Delivery, and will oblige himltlft'i
return them to the Owners, all unavoidable Ac-
twenty-four more, who cicjents aceepted.
registered their names at jf after th're Notice any Perfon fccretcs or keeps
Halifax, and some two in his Poflcflton fuch Articles* he will be trcaied
as a Favourer of Rebels,
who accompanied him
were nine hundred and
Bofton,
HOWE'S PROCLAMATION.2
hundred who made no
registry there. In more
than one case, after the
fleet had come out into
the bay, a sea-sick Tory's wife begged her husband to put back ; and, by
this chance, her family landed on the shore of Massachusetts, to be pro-
genitors of sturdy Republicans, and not, as might have been, of Nova
Scotians, loyal to Victoria.
1 " Last Friday," writes Major Judah Alden
to his father, " the selectmen of Boston sent out a
letter to General Washington, to desire him not to
molest General Howe when he quit the town, as
they had assurance from him that he would leave
the town standing, and all private property. By
their [the enemy's] motions, it looks as if they
were determined to quit. They have loaded every
vessel in the harbor, but what their design is
we do not know. It is generally thought that
they are not determined to go, but to make us
think so until they can get reinforcements. We
are making all preparations against them that we
possibly can, and keep a better lookout than
usual. General Washington's answer to the
selectmen of Boston was, as there was nothing
VOL. III. — 13.
binding from General Howe, he should pay no
regard to his promises to them."
- | This is a reduced fac-simile of an original
broadside in the Massachusetts Historical So-
ciety's Library, and indicates the measures in
preparation for the evacuation. Crean Brush
was an Irishman who had gained notoriety in
New York politics. Under cover of this procla-
mation, he broke open stores and dwellings, and
conveyed the plunder to the " Minerva." He
was captured on board his vessel after the evacu-
ation, and lodged in Boston jail, where, in 1777,
he was joined by his wife; and, in a disguise
which her garments furnished, he escaped, Nov.
5, 1777, and fled to New York. See the Evacua-
tion Memorial, p. 164. — ED.]
98
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
WASHINGTON AT DORCHESTER HEIGHTS.1
1 [This portrait of " Washington at Dorches-
ter Heights," as it is called, was painted by Stu-
art in nine days, in 1806, following the so-called
Athenaeum head, which was depicted twenty
years later than the event it is here made to com-
memorate. The story of this larger picture, told
in Mason's Stuart, p. 103, is as follows : Win-
which he had made in London of the Lansdowne
likeness of Washington, painted just before the
Athenaeum head. Mr. Samuel Parkman ad-
vanced the copyist some money on this canvas,
which, not being redeemed, was offered by him'
to the town for its acceptance. At the meeting
when this offer was made, a blacksmith objected
Stanley, the painter, brought to Boston a copy to the town's receiving a copy after Stuart, when
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.
99
the artist lived among them and could give an
original. This seemed a pertinent objection, and
Mr. Parkman commissioned Stuart to paint the
larger picture, which was then accepted by the
town, and remained for many years in Faneuil
Hall. It is now in the Art Museum. Before
painting it, Stuart worked out the design on
a smaller canvas, — or it is so claimed; and a
"small full-length," sold by Stuart to Isaac P.
Davis, and now owned by Mr. Ignatius Sar-
gent, of Brookline, is called this sketch. Ma-
son's Stuart, p. 105. — ED.]
1 [The annexed fac-simile is of a pen-and-ink
sketch made by Kosciusko at Valley Forge in
1777. Alden was born in Duxbury, Oct. 3, 1750;
was ensign in Cotton's regiment in 1775; lieu-
tenant in Bailey's in 1776; later, captain and
brevetted major, after service throughout the
war. Francis S. Drake's Memorials of the So-
ciety of the Cincinnati of Massachusetts, p. 210,
of which Major Alden was president from 1829
till his death, in 1845. He was with his regiment
at Roxbury during the siege.
After the news came of the defeat of Mont-
gomery at Quebec, Colonel Learned, accompa-
nied by Alden, was sent to the British lines with
a flag of truce. Alden at another time accompa-
nied Colonel Tupper, under orders from Gen-
1OO
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
The siege was ended; and Congress, March 25, 1776, ordered and had
struck a beautiful gold medal as a gift to Washington. It bears the mot-
toes: " Hostibus primo Fugatis," and " Bostonium Recuperatum." 1
General Artemas Ward commanded the right wing of the American
army, and directed the work of fortifying Dorchester Heights. General
John Thomas carried out his orders with such resource and promptness
as made the work the wonder of the time. And yet to-day, if you should
ask ten Boston men, "Who was Artemas Ward?" nine would say he was
an amusing showman. If you asked, "Who was John Thomas?" nine
would say he was a flunky commemorated by Thackeray. On the site
of the fortification — ordered by Washington, directed by Ward, and built
by Thomas — is a memorial-stone which bears, not their names, but that
of the mayor of Boston who erected it. Such is fame ! 2
eral Thomas, in whale-boats, to dislodge some
British who had seized an island in Quincy Bay.
The enemy fled on their approach. There are
particulars about the Grape Island affair, and
the general alarm along the southern shores of
the harbor, in The Familiar Letters of John
and Abigail Adams. — ED.]
1 [A heliotype fac-simile is given herewith.
Washington's reply to the letter of presentation
is given m fac-simile in Force's American Archives,
fourth series, v. 977. The die, made in France,
is still preserved, and coppers struck with it are
not uncommon; but impressions taken since it
has been repaired can be distinguished by one
less leg of the horses being discernible, and by
other marks. See Loubat's Medallic History
of the United States, and Snowden's Medals of
Washington; and particularly the description by
Mr. William S. Appleton in the Mass. Hist. Soc.
Proc., April, 1874, p. 289. The original gold
medal had come down through the descendants
of Washington's elder brother ; and, after hav-
ing been buried, to escape capture during the
late civil war, in the cellar of an old mansion in
the Shenandoah Valley, a representative of the
family sold it in the spring of 1876 to fifty gen-
tlemen of Boston, headed by the Hon. Robert C.
Winthrop, who presented it, during the Centen-
nial ceremonies of March 17 of that year, to the
city, to be preserved in the Public Library, where,
with all the papers of attestation, it now is. See
Public Library Report of that year ; the Evacua-
tion Memorial, p. 25, where a steel outline-
engraving of it is given, from the plate used in
Sparks's Washington ; and Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc.,
1876, p. 230. The heliotype here given is from
C
an early silver copy, belonging to Dr. Samuel
A. Green.
There were eleven different medals struck in
Paris, between 1776 and 1786, commemorative of
events of the Revolution, and by order of Con-
gress. The French Government, acting, it is
said, under the prompting of Lafayette, pre-
sented the entire series, in silver, to Washington,
and the collection is known as " the Washington
medals; "and the same finally coming into the
hands of Daniel Webster, passed, after Webster's
decease, to the Hon. Peter Harvey, who pre-
sented them to' the Massachusetts Historical
Society, where they now are. See the Proceed-
ings, April, 1874. — ED.] " Bostonium " in later
Latin has given way to " Bostonia." The cari-
catures of the times speak of the people as
" Bostoneers."
2 The admirable Centennial Address of Dr.
Ellis, and its full appendix, give very full mem-
oranda of the details of the siege and its re-
sults. [It may be worth while to note the sub-
sequent careers of the leading British generals.
Gage, after his return to England, became in-
conspicuous, and died April 2, 1787. Howe's
subsequent career further south only gained for
him criticism and inquiry, till he returned to
England in 1777 (where he died in 1814); to be
succeeded by Clinton, who held the command
till 1782, when he in turn returned to England,
and died in 1795. Burgoyne's surrender at Sar-
atoga led to his detention in Boston and Cam-
bridge, from which he also returned to England,
to enter Parliament and advise a cessation of
hostilities, dying finally in 1792. Siege of Boston,
P- 334- — ED.]
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.
101
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES BY THE EDITOR.
PAUL REVERE'S LANTERNS. — The story of
the lanterns has of late years attracted a good
deal of attention. Richard Devens, the friend
with whom it is claimed Paul Revere had agreed
upon this method of notice, made record of it
some time after in some minutes, which were not
brought to light till Mr. Frothingham printed
them in 1849 (Siege of Boston, p. 57). The De-
vens memorandum is also given in Wheildon's
Rmere's Signal Lanterns, p. 13, who discredits it
and disputes some of Frothingham's statements.
In 1798, a letter from Revere to Dr. Belknap,
detailing the events just before Lexington, was
printed in Mass. Hist. Coll., v. ; it may possibly
have been written a few, but probably not many,
years earlier. It has since been reprinted more
accurately in the same society's Proceedings, No-
vember, 1878, p. 371, from Revere's own man-
uscript, preserved in its cabinet. The story
entered into all the histories; but first acquired
wide popularity when Mr. Longfellow, in 1863,
made it one of his Tales of a Wayside Inn, —
departing, however, in his spirited verse, some-
what from the historical record, since Revere
did not watch for the lanterns, and never reached
Concord. Meanwhile no particular discrimina-
tion had been made in the printed accounts as
to the edifice from which the lights were dis-
played. Both Devens and Revere had called it
the North Church. Dr. Eaton, in his Historical
Discourse of Christ Church, had made no men-
tion of the story in 1824 as associated with that
church; and though a tradition remained to fix
upon that building the place of the signal's dis-
play, it was not publicly bruited till 1873, when
the Rev. Dr. Henry Burroughs, its rector, in an
historical discourse, claimed the connection of
the incident with this church, and that Robert
Newman, who was then its sexton, was the one
who hung out the lanterns at Revere's instiga-
tion. Drake's Landmarks, p. 214, about the same
time also gave the incident to Christ Church.
A movement next on the part of the city au-
thorities to commemorate the warning, by an in-
scription on this church, led to a protest, dated
Dec. 28, 1876, from Richard Frothingham, The
Alarm on the Night of April 18, 1775, in which
he showed, as indeed Devens's account makes
clear, that other warnings had been given before
the lanterns were hung out, and which
they only confirmed. Mr. Frothingham
also claimed that the old North Meet-
ing-house in North Square was the true
place of their display, — a building
which had been pulled down for fuel
during the siege. This position was
controverted by the Rev. John Lee Wat-
son in a letter in the Daily Advertiser,
July 20, 1876, which was subsequently
printed, with comments by Charles
Deane, in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., No-
vember, 1876; and separately, with a
later letter dated March, 1879, in Paul Revere's
Signals, New York, 1880. In these, both writer
and commentator show conclusively that Christ
Church was known popularly as the North
Church, and they contend that it was from its
spire the lights were shown. Mr. Watson also
contends that the " friend " of Revere was a
Boston merchant, Mr. John Pulling, a warden of
the church ; and that it was he who carried out
Revere's plan. Mr. W. W. Wheildon, in his
Paul Revere's Signal Lanterns, 1878, on the other
hand, reiterates the claims of Newman, and, as
well as Drake, — Middlesex County, p. 117, and
Landmarks of Middlesex, p. 214, — supports the
Christ Church view.
The present appearance of Christ Church is
shown in Vol. II. p. 509. A tablet was placed
on its front Oct. 17, 1878, with this inscription:
" The signal lanterns of Paul Revere displayed
in the steeple of this Church, April 18, 1775,
warned the country of the march of the British
troops to Lexington and Concord." The orig-
inal spire was overthrown in the great gale of
1804, but a new one, built by Charles Bulfinch,
preserved the proportions of the old one ; this,
however, has been somewhat changed by the
placing of the clock, as will be seen by com-
paring the cut in Shaw's Description of Boston,
p. 257. Mr. H. W. Holland's William Daives
and his Ride with Paul Revere, Boston, 1878,
sets forth the particular services, at the same
time, of Dawes.
LEXINGTON AND CONCORD. — Percy wrote
a private letter the day after the fight, dated
Boston, April 20, 1775, in which he says, speak-
ing of his march : " I advanced to a town about
twelve miles distant from Boston, before I could
get the least intelligence, as all the houses were
IO2
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
shut up, and not the least appearance of an in-
habitant to be seen." Then, speaking of his
reaching Lexington, and training his cannon
upon the Provincials, to gain " time for the gren-
adiers and light companies to form and retire in
order," he says he " stopped the rebels for a
little time, who dispersed directly and endeav-
ored to surround us, for they were in great num-
bers, the whole country having been collected
for above twenty miles round." " When the re-
treat began," he adds, " I ordered the grenadiers
and light infantry to move off, covering them
with my brigade, and detaching strong flanking
parties, — which was absolutely necessary, as
the whole country we had to retire through was
covered with stone walls, and extended a very
hilly strong country." He reports that they had
" expended almost every cartridge " when they
reached Charlestown, and had lost "65 killed,
157 wounded, and 21 missing, beside one officer
killed, 15 wounded, and two wounded and taken
prisoners. . . . This, however, was nothing like
the number of which, from many circumstances,
I have reason to believe were killed of the
rebels." Of his adversaries he says : " Whoever
looks upon them merely as an irregular mob
will find himself much mistaken. They have
men among them who know very well what they
are about, having been employed as rangers
against the Indians and Acadians ; and this
country, being much covered with wood and
hilly, is very advantageous for their method of
fighting. Nor are several of their men void of
a spirit of enthusiasm, as we experienced yester-
day ; for many of them concealed themselves in
houses, and advanced within ten yards to fire at
me and other officers, though they were morally
certain of being put to death. . . . You may de-
pend upon it that as the rebels have now had
time to prepare, they are determined to go
through with it ; nor will the insurrection here
turn out so despicable as it is perhaps imagined
at home. For my part I never believed, I con-
fess, that they would have attacked the King's
troops, or have had the perseverance I found in
them yesterday." These extracts are from a
ftic-simile of the letter kindly lent by the Rev.
E. G. Porter, of Lexington, supplied to him by
the Duke of Northumberland, the grand-nephew
of the Earl The letter is more interesting than
Percy's official report to Gage of the same date,
which is printed in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., May,
1876, p. 349.
The late Hon. Charles Hudson furnished to
the Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., January, 1880, p. 315,
a paper on Pitcairn, whose name, because of his
alleged beginning of the contest at Lexington,
has been usually shrouded with obloquy ; but he
is said to have been a fair-minded officer, much
esteemed by all. (Sargent's Dealings with the
Dead, No. 17.) The first shot, whether fired by
Pitcairn or not, seems to have been from a
pistol, — perhaps accidentally, — not with any
execution so far as appears ; but it was soon fol-
lowed by a few muskets, and then by a volley of
the British vanguard. Pitcairn and his officers
aver that the first shot came from the Provin-
cials. (See Stiles's Diary, quoted in Frothing-
ham's Siege of Boston, p. 62 ; and Irving's
Washington,} The Provincials, scores of them,
report that it came from the Regulars. Nei-
ther side intended to fire first, and it is not
easy to determine to whose door what was
probably an accidental discharge is to be laid.
There has been some discussion as to the per-
son who first shed British blood. (Magazine of
American History, April, 1880, p. 308.) At all
events, it may be worth while in passing to note
that these " embattled farmers " stood where
the parallel lines are marked on the annexed
plan of the triangular Lexington Green ; which
also shows where Percy planted his cannon to
keep the Provincials at bay, while Smith's re-
tiring force sought shelter in the opened ranks
of Percy's detachment. The royal side pro-
fessed not to look upon the affair as we are ac-
customed to now-a-days. " Each side is ready
to swear the other fired first," says a letter of
the time, describing the after effects in Boston.
" The country-people call this a victory, and
the retreat of the troops a precipitate flight.
They don't consider that when the King's troops
had effected what they went for, they had only
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.
103
to come home again." Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc.,
1873. P; 57-
Major Pitcairn, a few weeks later at Bunker
Hill, fell back into his son's arms as he was
scaling the redoubt, shot by a negro, — Peter
Salem. (See George Livermore's "Historical
Research " in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., August,
1862, p. 176.) He was brought over the ferry to
Mr. Stoddard's, near the landing, and here bled
to death. His remains were placed under Christ
Church ; and the story goes that when, some
years after, they were sought to be sent to his
relatives in England, another body, through the
difficulties of identification, was sent instead.
Drake's Landmarks, p 217.
The reader must seek detailed accounts of
this eventful day in Frothingham's Siege of Bos-
ton, and in the smaller monographs and in-
cidental accounts, of which full enumeration is
given in Winsor's Readers1 Handbook of the Rev-
olution, pp. 26-33; and in J. L. Whitney's Lit-
erature of the Nineteenth April, 1775. Gage's
public statement is given in l\ic fac-simile of his
" Circumstantial Account" in the present chap-
ter, which is not, by the way, accurately nor
wholly reprinted in Afass. Hist. Coll., ii. ; nor in
The Cambridge of 1776, p. 103. Percy's account
and Smith's report are in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc.,
May, 1876; and Smith's is also in Mahon's Eng-
land, vi. app. ; and in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., May,
1876, p. 350. It is interesting to compare the
account given
in the Memoir
and Letters of
Captain W. G.
Evelyn, Ox-
ford, 1 879, pp.
53- '2I-
The Provincial Congress, on its side, issued
a Narrative of the Incursions, etc., — which was
printed in its journal, also separately by Isaiah
Thomas, and often since, — and took numerous
depositions of participants in the fight, the princi-
pal men, like Colonel Barrett, deposing separate-
April, 1858 ; Siege of Boston, p. 86. What are
called the Lexington alarm rolls, or the lists of
minute-men who turned out as the news spread,
are contained in Massachusetts Revolutionary
Rolls, xi.-xvi., with indexes.
THE LITERATURE OF BUNKER HILL. — This
is voluminous, and is set forth on different plans
in Winsor's Readers' Handbook of the American
Revolution, pp. 35-59; and in J. F. Hunnewell's
Bibliography of Charlestown and Bunker Hill,
pp. 13-29. It is enough to mention here, of the
more extended accounts, that in Frothingham's
Siege of Boston, Dawson's in an extra number
of the Historical Magazine, June, 1868, and that
of Dr. George E. Ellis. Colonel Prescott wrote
a brief and unsatisfactory account in the follow-
ing August, addressed to John Adams, which is
printed by Frothingham and Dawson; and his
son, Judge Prescott, wrote a narrative, which rep-
resents presumably the views of Prescott, and
which Frothingham printed in his centennial ac-
count of the battle, and in the Mass. Hist. Soc.
Proc., 1875. Two contemporary accounts are
preserved from eye-witnesses on opposing sides,
and from opposite points of view. Burgoyne
saw the battle from Copp's Hill and described
it in a letter to Lord Stanley, which is printed
in Fonblanque's Burgoyne and in other places.
The Rev. Peter Thacher, of Maiden, saw it from
the farther side of the Mystic, and wrote an ac-
ly, — the originals of which, or those sent to
England, are preserved in the libraries of Har-
vard College and the University of Virginia.
They have been often printed. These, with other
papers, were entrusted to Richard Derby, of Sa-
lem, and he despatched
Captain John Derby
with them on a swift
vessel, so that the pro-
vincial accounts of the
day's work reached Lon-
don and the Government eleven days in advance
of Gage's despatches. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc.,
count which is preserved in the American Anti-
quarian Society's Library, and is printed by
Dawson. This was the basis of the narrative
set forth by the Provincial Congress, which is
printed by Frothingham and others. Gage's
official report was printed in Almon's Re-
membrancer.
The earliest anniversary oration was Josiah
Bartlett's, in 1794, which was printed the next
year in Boston by B. Edes.
The bibliographical history of a somewhat
needless controversy, which at one time was
mixed with political recriminations, as to the
command in a battle which was too unexpected
and unorganized for any individual and regular
management of the whole extent of it, is traced
in Winsor's Handbook, p. 48. There can be no
question of Prescott's military superiority at the
redoubt ; all else was supplementary, contingent
certainly, but mainly independent, though a par-
IO4
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
tial concert of action obtained throughout the
day, rather by mutual apprehension of the ne-
cessities of the case than by fixed direction.
In the parade at the time of laying the corner-
stone of the monument in 1825 one hundred and
ninety Revolutionary soldiers appeared ; and of
these, forty professed to have been in the battle.
Under the fervor of the hour, some of these were
appealed to to revive their recollections, and a
mass of depositions were taken by William Sul-
livan and others; but those instrumental in pro-
curing them soon became satisfied that such "old
men's tales" drew more on the imagination than
was fit for historical evidence. Colonel Swett,
however, used them to some degree in the addi-
tions which he made to his account of the battle.
These papers, in 1842, were for a while in the
hands of a committee of the Historical Society,
who saw no reason to value them differently;
and being returned to the Sullivan family, it is
supposed that they were destroyed. (Mass. Hist.
Soc. Proc., ii. 224-231.) Some papers, presum-
ably of the same character, were offered at auc-
tion in New York in 1877 ; but without finding a
purchaser. There is an amusing account of one
of the so-called veterans of Bunker Hill
in No. i of the "Recollections of Amer-
ican Society," in Scribner's Monthly,
January, 1881, p. 420. Numerous pa-
pers relating to individual losses at
Bunker Hill are in Massachusetts Ar-
chives, cxxxix. ; and papers relating to the official
return of the damage done by the burning of
Charlestown, communicated to the Governor
Jan. ii, 1783, are in Massachusetts Archives,
cxxxviii. 393. So late as 1834 memorials were
presented to the Legislature, asking satisfac-
tion for losses suffered on June 17, 1775. See
House Document of that year, No. 55.
THE AMERICAN LINES. — These can be
traced in Pelham's Boston and Vicinity, and
Trumbull's Boston and the Surrounding Country ;
both of which are given in reduced fac-simile in
this volume, and are noted in the Introduction,
together with various eclectic maps of a later day,
useful in fixing the localities.
There were four points of attack which
the besieging force guarded against: first, by
Charlestown Neck, where the left wing, under
Lee, would have to bear the brunt of the onset ;
second, by boats across the Back Bay, where the
British would have to effect a landing in the face
of the centre under Putnam ; third, by a sortie
from the Neck lines toward Roxbury; fourth,
by Dorchester Neck, where, by landing on that
peninsula, the enemy might attempt to turn the
extreme right of the right wing. This part of
the lines, both at Roxbury and Dorchester, was
held by the right wing, which was commanded by
Ward after Washington took the general com-
mand.
The fortified positions and associated land-
marks along this line of circumvallation may
perhaps be traced with interest.
Going out over Charlestown Neck the road
forked at the Common, just west of the narrowest
part. The right hand fork came soon to Ploughed
Hill, the modern Mount Benedict; and it was
here that the Americans took an advanced post
August 26, bringing them within range of the Brit-
ish guns on Bunker Hill. It \vas(an act intended
to invite an attack, which was, however, declined.
General Sullivan fortified it under a heavy fire,
and pushed out his picket line till it confronted
the enemy's within ear-shot ; and the place be-
came the scene of much sharpshooting, chiefly
conducted by Morgan's Virginia riflemen, who
<7
had reached the camp during the summer. There
were redoubts also at Ten Hills Farm, which
Sullivan had erected to protect his post at
Ploughed Hill from assault on the Mystic side ;
and some traces of them are still left.
j ^ £ /
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.
105
The road by Ploughed Hill led on to Winter
Hill, which was fortified immediately after the
battle of Bunker Hill, and garrisoned chiefly by
New Hampshire troops. The main defence was
on the summit, where the road to Medford now
diverges. Much of the proficiency of Sullivan's
camp was due to his brigade-major, Alexander
Scammell. (See Historical Magazine, September,
valley toward Winter Hill, and on the other
toward the Cambridge lines. Putnam had be-
gun work here immediately after the retreat
from Charlestown. When Washington arrived
1870.) A good deal of the military spirit of the
camp was derived from a veteran of the French
wars, John Nixon, who had been very busy on
the Lexington day, been wounded at Bunker Hill,
and the army was brigaded, Greene was sta-
tioned here under Lee, assuming command on
July 26, with a force of three or four thou-
sand men, including his Rhode Islanders, who
had been earlier encamped at Jamaica Plain.
It was on Prospect Hill that Putnam hoisted
his Connecticut flag, — "An appeal to Heaven,"
— on July 18 ; and again on Jan. i, 1776, what
and was made a brigadier in August. Henry
Dearborn and John Brooks, both later known in
Boston history, were also officers of this camp.
From this Winter Hill fort, one road leading
to Medford passed the old Royall mansion, where
Lee and Sullivan each at one time made their
quarters, and where Stark held his command.
The story of the famous old mansion is told in
Drake's Landmarks of Middlesex, ch. vi. About
equally distant on the road to Concord was the
old Powder Tower, whose remains are to-day one
of the most characteristic relics of the past near
Boston. Drake's Landmarks of Middlesex, ch. v.
It was to this magazine that Gage sent the expe-
dition in September, 1774, to seize the powder,
as told in the preceding chapter.
The uneven valley between Winter and Pros-
pect hills was guarded by more than one re-
doubt ; and in the rear of one of them, in an old
farm-house still standing on Sycamore Street,
known as the Tufts house, Lee had his head-
quarters.
Pelham's map shows the extensive works and
out-works which crowned the summit of Pros-
pect Hill, and extended on the one hand into the
VOL. III. — 14.
they called the Union flag of the Confederated
Colonies, — a banner with thirteen stripes.
The road which ran from Charlestown Com-
mon to Cambridge Common passed just below
Prospect Hill (the present Washington Street
in Somerville, and Kirkland Street in Cam-
bridge), and between it and the lesser eminence,
called then Cobble or Miller's Hill, — now the
site of the Insane Asylum, — where Putnam and
Knox on the night of November 22, with the
regiments of Bond and Bridge as a supporting
force, threw up breastworks which afterward
became one of the strongest points of the Amer-
ican lines, and when mounted with 18 and 24
pounders served effectually to keep the enemy's
vessels from moving too near.
Just South of Cobble Hill, the marshy land
intersected by Willis's Creek made an island of
the region now known as East Cambridge, but
io6
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
which was then called Phips's farm, or Lech-
mere's Point, the old farm-house standing near
where the modern court house is. Richard Lech-
mere, who owned it, had acquired it by marrying
the daughter of Spencer Phips, the royal Lieut.-
Governor, whence the two names. He was now
a Tory, and the upland was soon put to
good use. Gage had found it convenient
to land his detachment here, which marched
to Lexington ; and how Boston looked
from this point may be seen from one of
the heliotypes in the preceding chapter.
There was already one causeway, connecting
by a bridge over Willis's Creek the neigh-
borhood of Prospect Hill, when Washington
determined to fortify the point, and then to
extend the road now called Cambridge Street
over the marsh, so as to bring the new fort into
more direct communication with his centre.
Having protected these two approaches by small
works on the main land, and Manly's capture
of an ordnance ship supplying him with a 13-inch
mortar, he began to extend a covered way there
on the night of November 29, and broke ground
for his main work on December n, which he
was obliged to complete under heavy fire from
the Boston side. This, and the frozen ground,
delayed the completion till the latter part of
February, 1776. Knox's cannon from Ticonder-
oga played here a good part in the bombard-
ment of March 2, when one of the shot struck
the tower of the Brattle Street Church, and was
to be seen there to our day.
Thus the advanced posts of the besieging
army from their extreme left at Ploughed Hill
were continued through Cobble Hill and Phips's
farm ; while, to protect the centre front, in No-
vember two small redoubts were thrown up,
bordering on the marshes, further on toward the
Charles. One of these, which was intended to
repel boats, was found in complete preservation
by Finch, in 1822. The further waste by time
was repaired by the Cambridge city authorities,
in 1858, who enclosed the earthwork, and named
it Fort Washington. Pelham's map, and so does
Marshall's, places the other battery nearer the
Charles; but Finch could find no trace of it.
It probably occupied the knoll in the marsh to
which Magazine Street now conducts. Paige's
History of Cambridge, p. 422.
The interior line of defence, which was con-
structed earlier by Gridley, consisted of detached
works, extending from a point on the Charles,
where now the Riverside Press is, over Butler
(or Dana) Hill, in the direction
of Prospect Hill, and ending
near Union Square in Somer-
ville. They can be traced on
Pelham's map, and are de-
scribed in Drake's Landmarks
of Middlesex, p. 186. Finch,
in 1822, could find little trace
of them.
Just in advance of this line,
in the house of the Tory Ralph Inman, Putnam
had his head-quarters. He left his son, Colonel
Putnam, here to guard the ladies during the action
on Bunker Hill. Drake reports the house in 1873
as being cut asunder and wheeled off. It stood
on Inman Street, where the road from the college
to Phips's farm made a sharp turn to join the
Charlestown road. It is shown in Pelham's
map. The house before the war was a centre of
attraction for the royalist officers in Boston ; for
Inman kept good cheer, and had pretty daugh-
ters. One of them married John Linzee, who
commanded the " Falcon " on Bunker-Hill day.
Putnam, on reaching Cambridge, had occu-
pied the Borland house, popularly known as the
Bishop's Palace, directly opposite Gore Hall,
on Harvard Street. It had been built about
fifteen years before by the Rev. East Apthorp of
Christ Church, Cambridge, a son of Charles
Apthorp, a Boston merchant. John Adams says
it was " thought to be a splendid palace, and
was supposed to be intended for the residence
of the first royal bishop." Another Boston
merchant, John Borland, occupied it up to the
outbreak; and it was he who added the third
story, to give more accommodation for his
household slaves, — as the tale goes. The true
front is toward Mount Auburn Street.
A little further west, and within the college
yard, is the present Wadsworth House, the for-
mer home of the presidents of the college.
The cut on the next page follows a drawing
made by Miss E. S. Quincy during the presi-
dency of her father.
The house in 1776 was fifty years old, having
been built in 1726 for the occupancy of Presi-
dent Wadsworth ;.and it did not have the late-
ral projections, which were put on in Treasurer
Storer's time to enlarge the dining and drawing
rooms. It was in this house that quarters were
assigned to Washington, by provision of the
Congress at Watertown, on his coming to Cam-
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.
IO7
bridge ; as Mr. Deane has conclusively shown in
a paper in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., September,
1872, p. 257. See also Harvard Book ; Catn-
bridge of '177 '5; Drake's Landmarks of Middlesex,
p. 206; Quincy's History of Harvard University.
Miss Quincy thinks that a British shell, which
passed over the house and fell in Harvard
Square, probably showed that a remoter head-
quarters were safer for the General. See Dr.
Hoi brook's account in Memoirs of Mrs. E. S. M.
Quincy, p. 223.
Hist. Soc. Proc. for 1881. The old Stoughton was
to disappear, however, before the war ended.
Hollis Hall was also then standing ; but hardly
a dozen years old. Holden Chapel was thirty
years old, and became the place for courts-mar-
tial to be held. In May, 1775, the Provincial Con-
gress had taken possession of these buildings,
and on the day before Bunker Hill the College
library had been removed to a place of safety.
The original records of this Provincial Congress
are in Mass. Archives, cxl. ; they have been
THE WADSWORTH HOUSE.
It was in the old meeting-house shown in the
engraving, which stood where now the Law
School stands, that the Provincial Congress of
1774 held its sessions. Washington attended
Sunday services here, occupying a wall pew on
the left of the pulpit.
The principal college buildings at this time
were Harvard Hall, which, after the fire of
1764, had been rebuilt ; Massachusetts Hall ;
and the Stoughton of that day (seen in the por-
trait of Wm. Stoughton in Vol. II. 166), which,
with the highway opposite, formed a quad-
rangle of the space now lying between
Harvard and Massachusetts, as shown in
the old " Prospect of the Colledges in Cam-
bridge in New England,'' of which there
are two conditions of the plate : one in Lieut. -
Gov. William Dummer's time, as issued by W.
Burgis, and the other in the days of Lieut.-Gov.
Spencer Phipps, when William Price issued it. A
heliotype, considerably reduced, is given in Mass.
printed. In the winter of 1775-76, nearly two
thousand men were sheltered in these and the
lesser college buildings, and they made use of all
the college property. On May 3, 1777, the col-
lege steward, Jonathan Hastings, made a return
of " the utensils left in the college kitchen, which
[words carefully erased, evidently "the colony")
of the Massachusetts Bay have not replaced."
(Mass. Archives, cxlii. 57.)
It is probable that the earliest works raised
after Lexington day were some breastworks
thrown up across what is now the college yard,
and it is probable also that they were raised early
in May by Colonel Doolittle and his men ; and
Drake says, Landmarks of Middlesex, p. 243, that
they extended to the right as far as Holyoke
io8
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Place. North of the college buildings and front-
ing on the Common was the house still standing,
now owned by the University and occupied by
Professor James B. Thayer, by whose permission
the view of the old hall, given in the annexed
cut, was taken. The door to the right opens
into the room in which General Ward held
the night before the battle; that President Lang-
don went forth from the western door and
prayed for God's blessing on the men just set-
ting forth on their bloody expedition, — all
these things have been told and perhaps none
of them need be doubted." (Poet at the Break-
fast Table. Also see Harvard Book, ii. 424 ; Still-
his council of war, when it
was resolved to occupy the
heights in Charlestown. In
the exterior view, the lower
windows to the right of the
entrance belong to this
room. Dr. Holmes says in
his " Gambrel-roofed House
and its Outlook : " "I retain
my doubts about those dents
on the floor of the right-hand
room, the ' study ' of the suc-
cessive occupants, said to
have been made by the butts
of the Continental militia's firelocks ; but this
was the cause the story told me in childhood laid
them to. That military consultations were held
in that room when the house was General Ward's
headquarters ; that the Provincial generals and
colonels, and other men of war, there planned
the movement which ended in the fortifying of
Bunker Hill; that Warren slept in the house
man's Poetic Localities of Cambridge ; Drake's
Landmarks of Middlesex, p. 255; and Middlesex
County, i. 337; McKenzie's History of First
Church in Cambridge.} It is well known that the
house was the birthplace of Dr. Holmes. At the
outbreak of the war it was occupied by Jonathan
Hastings, the college steward who, in July, 1775,
became the postmaster of Cambridge ; and it was
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.
ICQ
his son Jonathan who was later postmaster of Bos-
ton. Very soon after Lexington the Committee of
Safety took possession, and the original minutes
of their doings here are now preserved in the
Mass. Archives, cxl. It was to this committee
that Benedict Arnold, with his Connecticut com-
pany, reported, April 29; and from them, May 3,
relating to his subsequent resignation, are in the
Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc,, July, 1871. Colonel Car-
rington, in his Battles of the American Revolu-
tion, speaks of Ward, then less than fifty, "as
advanced in years and feeble in body." Drake
gives the same false impression in speaking of
" his age and infirmity " two years later.
he received his colonel's commission ; and here
Ward, upon receiving his commission from the
Province to be the ranking general of the Massa-
chusetts forces, fixed his headquarters.
This commission was dated May 19, 1775;
and that from the Continental Congress, making
Ward the second major-general in the service,
bears date June 22. These, with other 'papers
Almost directly west from this house, and on
the other side of the Common, still stands the
old elm under which Washington, July 3, 1775,
first took command of the unorganized army of
soldiers then laying siege to Boston. (Cambridge
in the Centennial, 1875.) The arrival of Wash-
ington was anxiously waited, and his assuming
command was expected to " be attended with a
I IO
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
great deal of grandeur. There are," writes Lieu-
tenant Hodgkins, that morning, " one and twenty
drummers and as many fifers a beating and play-
ing round the parade." — Ipswich Antiquarian
Papers, 1881.
The annexed cut follows a painting which
represents this historic tree before it had begun
to show many signs of age. The house in the
background occupied the site of the present
Shepard Memorial Church, and was standing
during the Revolution. It was known as the
Moore House, the home of a certain Deacon
Moore, whose wraith was said to haunt it. When
it was destroyed some years since, two skele-
tons were found beneath it, walled up in a cavity.
Press is all there is left of the old Brattle Estate.
The beautiful and extensive gardens with mall
and grotto, and stretching to the river, have all
disappeared. William Brattle, who occupied it
at this time, deserted it, and fled to his friends
in Boston. He was the universal genius of his
time, and of course was called superficial. A
graduate of Harvard, he served" by turns as a
theologian and preacher, a physician and blood-
letter, a lawyer and attorney-general, a politician
and counsellor; and then, to make a Tory of
him, the place of brigadier in the militia was
conveniently found empty. When he went off
to Halifax with Gage, they called him "commis-
sary and cook." The place had been vastly im-
THE WASHINGTON KLM.
(Drake's Landmarks of Middlesex, p. 268.) There
are accounts of the tree in Harvard Book, ii. and
in fhe paper on "American Historical Trees" in
Harper's Monthly, May, 1862. Christ Church
stood then as now, and, except being lengthened,
is not greatly changed in outward appearance.
A subscription, mainly effected in Boston, had
built it about fifteen years earlier, and its parish-
ioners were now mostly Tories and absentees. It
was accordingly converted into barracks, and
some of the Southern riflemen found quarters
there, though occasional church services wer.e
held in it, a member of Washington's staff con-
ducting them. See Dr. Hoppin's Historical Dis-
course.
Proceeding into Brattle Street from Harvard
Square, the first house beyond the University
proved under the superintendence of a son,
Major Thomas Brattle, who had gone to England
early in the war, signifying his neutrality, but
exerting himself the mean while to alleviate the
trials of American prisoners in that country. At
the end of the war his return was allowed by the
Legislature only on the strong presentation by
Judge Sullivan of his claims to consideration.
(Amory's James Sullivan, \. 139.) The mansion
was early appropriated to the uses of Colonel
Mifflin,1 who acted as the quartermaster-general
1 John Adams describes dining at this house Jan. 24,
1776, with General Washington and his lady and other
company, among whom were " six or seven sacliems and
warriors of the French Caghnawaga Indians with several of
their wives and children," then visiting ihe camp. '' I was
introduced to them by the General," says Adams, "as one
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.
I I I
of the army, and whose memoranda can be seen
on the corner of the plan of the British lines on
Boston Neck, in a heliotype given in this chapter.
The grounds of the Brattles extended to those
of the Vassalls, whose old mansion is still stand-
ing, much shorn of its ancient splendor, and lately
the residence of Mr. Samuel Batchelder. The
house was at this time a passably old one, seventy-
five years or even more having passed since its
erection, and its history can be read as written
by Mrs. James, Mr. Batchelder's daughter, in The
Cambridge of 1775, p. 93, showing how many
changes have been made in its appearance. The
Vassalls had owned it since 1736, when Colonel
John Vassall was in possession. He had mar-
ried a daughter of Lieut.-Governor Spencer Phips,
and in years to come she and others who bore
the name of the bluff, illiterate sailor, William
Phips, were foremost figures in the old Tory
aristocracy of Cambridge ; for her three sisters
married Judge Richard Lechmere, Judge Joseph
Lee, and Andrew Boardman. In 1741 Henry
Vassall, the colonel's brother, bought it. He
was then living in Boston, but had lately been a
planter in Jamaica, though of a Boston family.
(See Vol. II. p. 544.) This' Henry married a
daughter of Isaac Royall, whose fine mansion on
the Medford road we have seen in the occupancy
of Lee and Sullivan. The husband died in 1769,
and was buried under Christ Church ; but the
widow survived here till the war began, when she
suddenly emigrated to Antigua, leaving the old
^^^Y
^ ^
ton's arrival. The story of Church's defection
need not be told here. Its growth has been
traced in Frothingham's Life of Joseph Warren,
p. 225. (Also see Siege of Boston, p. 258 ; Gordon's
American Revolution, ii. 134; Loring's Hundred
Boston Orators, p. 39 ; Sabine's American Loyal-
ists; and Mr. Goddard's chapter in the present
volume.) The letter which he addressed to his
brother in Boston, and which was intercepted,
was written in cipher; and in the Massachusetts
Archives, cxxxviii. 326, is a copy of it as "de-
ciphered by the Rev. Mr. West, and acknowl-
edged by the doctor to be truly deciphered." It
is attested by Joseph Reed, secretary. The trans-
lation was printed in the Ne-d> England Chronicle
and Essex Gazette of Jan. 4, 1776, at that time
printed in one of the college buildings; and is
reprinted in N. E. Hist, and Geneal. Reg., April,
1857, p. 123. Church was brought before a coun-
cil of officers September 13, when he did not at-
tempt to vindicate himself. He was now confined
in a front chamber of this house, and the name,
" B. Church, Jr.," cut by himself in the panel of a
closet door in that chamber, can be traced to-day.
The court remanded him to the Provincial Con-
gress at Watertown, whither he was taken in a
chaise with a guard under General Gates, and
the trial took place in the meeting-house, Church
v .sj //
^^^^/^^t^ 6^£^
X V^
>. > x
<>^. -w^?x
^e^TT^t^i.
making a plausible speech. It is well known that
the result was confinement, which was changed
for exile ; but the vessel which bore him toward
the West Indies was never heard of. The an-
house to be occupied by the medical staff of the
army, under the director-general, Dr. Benjamin
Church, who took this position after Washing-
of the grand council-fire at Philadelphia, which made them
prick up their ears." — Familiar Letters, p. 131. John
Adams's Works, ii. 431.
nexed autograph is from a letter which .he ad-
dressed from this house to the president of the
Congress. An early copy of his statement, " From
112
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
my prison in Cambridge, Nov. i, 1775," is pre-
served in the Sparks MSS. xlix. i. t.
There is no doubt that the wounded from
Bunker Hill were brought here, and were placed
General Joseph Warren, was put in charge of
the Cambridge Hospital, June 26, 1775. William
Gamage, Jr., was also in attendance
on the wounded, both after Lexing-
ton and Bunker Hill, from April 19
to Aug. 17, 1775.
Beyond the Vassall house, and
on the opposite side of the street,
is another, known as the Craigie House, and
perhaps the most famous dwelling in America, —
at that time the military home of Washington,
now the home of Longfellow.
cinnati Society. Eustis
Joseph Warren, who
procured for him the
appointment of surgeon
to the artillery regiment
at Cambridge, and later
he became the senior surgeon
of the camp hospital (Life of
John Warren, pp. 24, 50.) It ap-
pears from a paper in the Massa-
chusetts Archives, cxxxviii., that
Dr. John Warren, the brother of
under the spe-
cial care of
r. Eustis and
1 the other sur-
geons. There
is an engrav-
ing of Eustis,
after Stuart's
likeness, in
Drake's Cin-
had been a pupil of
The annexed cut follows a water-color made
by Fenn some years since. When Washington
occupied it as his headquarters, his office was
the room on the right of the front door, now
Longfellow's study. The chamber over it \v;i>
his bedroom. The present library-room is be-
hind the study, and was used as a staff-room
by the commander -in -chief, and is doubtless
the apartment in which his secretary, Joseph
Reed, made the fair draughts of many of the
letters dated at these headquarters. Miss E.
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.
S. Quincy writes to me : "The late Daniel Green-
leaf, of Quincy, told me that his father was em-
ployed (I believe) to furnish the Vassall House;
and calling on Washington, his son accompany-
ing him, the two were invited to dine, — the meal
was taken in the room to the right of the front
door, and consisted of four dishes of meat, etc.,
which the aids carved."
We have a pleasant picture of life at the old
house in Horace E. Scudder's " Guests at Head-
quarters " in The Cambridge of 1775. The house
has been often depicted, — by photography in
Stillman's Poetic Localities, and in the Ilan-ard
Book, \. ; and on steel in Drake's Middlesex, p.
338 ; etc. The estate at that time was much more
extensive than it is at present, and extended
northward to include the present Observatory
Hill, which at one time bore a summer-house ;
and from a spring in its neighborhood water was
conducted to the mansion through an aqueduct,
whose inlet in the foundations of the house is
still visible. It is thought that the house was
erected by Colonel John Vassall in 1759, and when
Washington occupied it was comparatively a new
structure. The colonel had but lately abandoned
it and joined his Tory associates in Boston, where
he occupied the Faneuil house (depicted in Vol.
II. p. 523) till he went to England, where he died
in 1797. His estate in Cambridge was early con-
fiscated. Immediately upon Vassall's leaving, a
Marblehead regiment under Colonel (later Gen-
eral) Glover, took possession. — a band of fisher-
men commanded by a fisherman, who had re-
ported to General Ward, June 22, — and they ap-
pear to have occupied the house till July 7, when
they received orders to encamp, the Provincial
Congress having directed the furnishing of the
mansion for Washington's occupancy. The com-
mander-in-chief records an expense for cleansing
the quarters, July 1 5, so that not far from that
VOL. III. — 15.
time he probably first took possession, and re-
mained in it eight months.
Mrs. Washington did not join her husband
in this house till December 11. Mrs. Goodwin,
the mother of the late Ozias Goodwin, was the
housekeeper of the establishment. In the stable,
still standing, were the light phaeton and pair
with which General Washington had come to
Cambridge, beside the saddle-horses of himself
and staff.
Later, the house became successively the
property of Nathaniel Tracy of Newburyport,
who had fitted out the first privateer in the
war; of Thomas Russell, the Boston merchant ;
and, in 1791, of Dr. Andrew Craigie, late apoth-
ecary-general of the Revolutionary army, who
had served the wounded at Bunker Hill. The
annexed autograph is from a paper dated May
14, 1775, at the hospital in Cambridge. Prom
him the house acquired its name, as did the
bridge now connecting Boston and East Cam-
bridge, Craigie being prominent in that enter-
prise. Later it was the home of Sparks (while
editing Washington's Writings], Everett, and
Worcester the lexicographer ; and became that
of Longfellow in 1837. Drake's Landmarks of
Middlesex, ch. xiii.
We must pass hastily by two or three other
old Tory houses which marked Brattle Street in
the Revolutionary days, and which still stand.
First, on the corner of Sparks Street, though now
elevated on a new basement story, is the house
(owned by John Brewster, a Boston banker)
which Richard Lechmere (and, later, Jonathan
Sewall) occupied, till he was mobbed and fled to
Boston in September, 1774. See Mr. Goddard's
chapter in this volume, and Mr. Morse's in Vol.
IV., for some account of Sewall. Further on,
the residence of Mr. George Nichols was the
house of Judge Joseph Lee, a Loyalist of care-
ful utterance, who, after wintering in Boston with
the British during the siege, was permitted to
return to his home, and died here in 1802. And
still beyond, hidden by large trees, is the old
mansion of the Tory George Ruggles, who lived
here up to 1774, when the house passed into the
hands of Thomas Fayerwether, who gave it
the name by which it is best known. It is at
present the residence of Henry Van Brunt, the
well known Boston architect.
Further on, the road to Watertown made a
turn to the left and passed in front of another
old mansion, now known as " Elmwood," and
the home of James Russell Lowell. The room
on the left of the front door is the reception
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
room, and behind it is his library, though his
study is in the third story. At the outbreak of
the Revolution, the last of the lieut.-governors.
Thomas Oliver, lived here ; and it was in this
house, " being surrounded by four thousand
people," that in September, 1774, " in compliance
with their commands," he signed his resignation
and fled to the protection of the soldiers in Bos-
ton. When Benedict Arnold, with his Connecti-
bridge has recently put up tablets to mark its
interesting historical sites. Harvard Register,
February, 1881.
South of the Charles, with the defences on the
Brookline shore, began the extreme left of the
lines of the right wing. The fort at Sewall's
farm was partly on the estate of Mr. Amos A.
Lawrence, where traces of it remained till a few
years ago, and partly across the track of the
cut Company, arrived in Cambridge just after
the Lexington fight, they were quartered in this
house, but the company remained only three
weeks in camp, having been selected in the
mean while, as the best equipped company in the
army, to deliver within the British lines the body
of a royal officer who died of wounds received
on April 19. After Bunker Hill the house be-
came a hospital, and the dead were buried in the
opposite field. There are other views of this
house in Drake's Landmarks of Middlesex, p.
317; Stillman's Poetic Localities of Cambridge;
and, with a notice by John Holmes, in the Har-
vard Register, June, 1881. The city of Cam-
ELMWOOD.
Boston and Albany Railroad. It was
built by Colonel Prescott's regiment,
assisted by Rhode Island troops, just
after the battle of Bunker Hill. Pres-
cott had his headquarters in a house half a mile
west on Beacon Street, now distinguished by the
large elms about it. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., Octo-
ber, 1869, p. 151 ; Woods's Brookline, p. 69.
The centre of this wing at Roxbury guarded
the only land entrance to Boston. The first de-
fence which the Americans threw up was a re-
doubt across the main street, where Eustis Street
now branches from Washington Street ; and
it became known later, when it was strength-
ened, as the Burying-ground Redoubt. When,
on August 23, they began an advanced line, they
first fortified Lamb's Dam, which was a dike
built for keeping out the tide, and extending
from near the lead-works, south of Northampton
Street, toward the Neck road ; and here, on the
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.
upland, they built a breastwork, and extended
entrenchments to the water on the westerly side,
completing them September 10.
A redoubt on the corner of Mall Street in
Roxbury defended the road to Dorchester, which
was pretty much the present Dudley Street.
A regular work was on the estate of Mr. N.
J. Bradlee, called the Lower Fort, of which a
plan is given in Drake's Town of Roxbury, p.
372. It was planned by Knox.
The strong fort which General Thomas
erected on the higher land, where now the Co-
THE OLD PARSONAGE IN ROXBURY.
A few clays after the fight at Bunker Hill, the
old house of Governor Dudley (where now the
Universalist Church stands) was taken down,
and its foundation stones formed part of the de-
fence here built. Smelt Brook crossed the street
in front of it.
There was a battery on rising ground above
the marsh, where Sumner Place enters Cabot
Street.
Where Parker Street conducts to the site of
the old landing place, a battery was held by
Colonel Joseph Read's regiment to defend the
landing.
A square redoubt on the Ebenezer Francis
estate, near Appleton Place, commanding Muddy
River, was the most northerly of the Roxbury
forts.
chituate stand-pipe is, was known as the Up-
per Fort. It was begun between July n and
14. Drake, Life of
Knox, p. 1 8, says
that the Roxbury
fort was built by
that officer, then
attracting Washing-
ton's attention.
This earth-work,
perhaps the best
preserved of all the
Revolutionary de-
fences, was unfortu-
nately, and it would seem needlessly, levelled, in
1869, when the water-tower was built. A small
memorial structure near by now points out the
n6
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
spot, and is inscribed : " On this eminence stood
Roxbury High Fort, a strong earthwork planned
by Henry Knox and Josiah Waters, and erected
by the American army, June, 1775, crowning the
famous Roxbury lines of in-
vestment at the siege of Bos-
t:>n." It has been said that
the first shot fired from its
cannon was on July i. See
Lossing's Field-Book of the
Revolution, ii. 24.
The meeting-house of the
First Parish, shown in the
cut in Mr. Drake's chapter
in this volume, was a con-
spicuous mark for the royal
cannon, and its steeple was
the signal-station of this wing of the besieging
army. Drake's Town of Roxbury, p. 287.
Close by was the house, now the residence
of Mr. Charles K. Dillaway, which is also shown
in the view given in Mr. Drake's chapter on
Roxbury in the present volume. At the out-
break of the war it was occupied by the Rev.
Amos Adams of the First Church. It after-
ward became the headquarters of General John
Heath's regiment. He commanded some of the
raids in the harbor. He served through the war,
and returned at the end of it to die very soon
after, Dec. 16, 1783. He is buried in the Rox-
bury burying-ground, but his grave is without
a stone. Drake's Town of Roxbury, p. 156.
General Ward, while commanding the right
wing after Washington had reorganized the
army, had his headquarters in the Datchet or
Brinley house, which stood near the present
church of the Redemptorists, and of which there
Thomas, of Kings-
ton, who, having
led hither a regi-
ment from Ply-
mouth at the first
summons, was made
provincial brigadier,
Feb. 9, 1775, a rank con-
firmed June 22, by Con-
gress, which also made him a
major-general, March 6, 1776.
Thomas was a physician by occupation, and was
born in 1725, of the old Marshfield stock, and
had served in the French war. He did not sur-
vive long enough to gain much distinction, dying
on the Sorel River, in Canada, in the following
June, having taken command of the army which
had been repulsed before Quebec. His portrait
has been engraved in the illustrated edition of
Irving's Washington. There was a short ac-
count of The Life and Services of Major-General
John Thomas, by Charles Coffin, published at
New York in 1844. Of Thomas's camp James
Warren wrote to Samuel Adams, June 21, 1775:
" It is always in good order, and things are
conducted with dignity and spirit, in the military
style."
General Greaton was a Roxbury man ; had
been an active Son of Liberty; was at Lexington ;
and July i, 1775, was commissioned colonel of
are views in Lossing's Field-Book of the War of
1812, p. 250, and in Drake's Town of Roxbury, p.
327, but which hardly represent the magnificence
said to have belonged to it in its palmy days,
and which is rather extravagantly set forth in
Mrs. Lesdernier's Fannie St. John. The Dear-
borns, both generals, father and son, later oc-
cupied this house. A journal of Captain Henry
Dearborn, kept during Arnold's Kennebec expe-
dition, is preserved in the Public Library. The
Connecticut regiments of Spencer, Huntington,
and Parsons were encamped on Parker Hill.
1 The order to which this signature is attached is in-
dicative of the resorts to which the forces were put to
make up for the want of bayonets, the absence of which
had been of such signal disaster to them, a month earlier,
at Bunker Hill. It is addressed to Ezekiel Cheever, at
Cambridge, and calls for two hundred and fifteen spears
for the use of the camp. See Life of Nathanael Greene,
i. 115.
THE SIEGE OF BOSTON.
117
General Greene, when with the right wing, had
his headquarters in the Loring-Greenough house,
(near the Soldiers' Monument), of which a view
is given in Vol. II. p. 345.
The headquarters of Colonel Learned's regi-
ment were in the Auchmuty house, of which a
view is given in Vol. II. p. 343 The mansion
of Governor Bernard on Jamaica Pond, later oc-
cupied by the younger Sir William Pepperell,
was the quarters of the Rhode Island Colonel
Miller for a while, and later it was used as a
camp hospital. The Hallowell house, which is
shown in Vol. II. p. 344, was also used as a
hospital. The Peacock, a famous tavern, stood
on the westerly corner of Centre and Allandale
streets, in West Roxbury, and was the resort of
British officers from town before the siege.
More than once it was the resting place of
Washington during the siege ; and finally it
became the residence of Sam Adams during his
term as Governor. Drake's Town of Roxbury,
P- 435-
The extreme right was protected by the line
of breastworks which guarded the entrance to
Dorchester Neck. These are shown on Trum-
bull's and Pelham's maps.
The extension of the American lines within
Dorchester Neck had been long contemplated
when, on February 26, Washington wrote : " I
am preparing to take a post on Dorchester
Heights, to try if the enemy will be so kind as
to come out to us." On Saturday evening,
March 2, 1776, Washington notified General
Ward of his determination to occupy Dorchester
Heights on Monday. At eight o'clock on the
night of March 4, the intrenchments were begun
there. On that night the Americans fired one
hundred and forty-four shot and thirteen shells
into Boston from their various defences, — chiefly
from Lamb's Dam. The rapidity with which
the defence was formed on the Heights was
owing to the employment of fascines, which had
been prepared during the winter in Milton and
vicinity. They were first carted to Brookline, to
deceive the enemy in regard to the point where
they were to be used ; and from this deposit a
train of wagons, under the charge of Mr. James
Boies, conveyed them after dark to the hill. See
the statement of Mr. Jeremiah Smith Boies, —
who died in 1851, aged eighty-nine, and who was
with his father, riding behind his saddle, that
night, — printed in the Boston Daily Advertiser,
March 17, 1876.
One of the devices for defence had been a
row of casks in front of the works, and these,
filled with earth and stones, were to be rolled
down the declivity as the enemy approached.
General Heath records that this device was sug-
gested by a Boston merchant, Mr. William
Davis ; and Stedman admits that it was a curious
provision, which would have swept off whole
columns at once. " It was therefore," he adds
as if a consequence, " determined to
evacuate the town." A monument on
Dorchester Heights bears this legend :
" Location of the American redoubt
on Dorchester Heights which com-
pelled the evacuation of Boston by the
British army, March 17, 1776."
Beside the maps already referred to as useful
in tracing the positions of the different works on
this extensive line of circumvallation, the ear-
liest account which we have of them, after they
had begun to disappear, is that of J. Finch, pub-
lished in Sillimaii's Journal in 1822, and re-
printed in Frothingham's Siege of Boston, p. 409.
Various later writers have attempted to trace
.them in detail. Chief among such are Lossing,
in his Field-Book of the Revolution ; S. A. Drake,
in \i\s Landmarks of Middlesex ; and F. S. Drake,
in his Town of Roxbury. Some aid will be de-
rived from Woods's Brookline, and the histories
of Dorchester and South Boston.
THE LITERATURE OF THE SIEGE. — This
has been enumerated in Winsor's Readers' Hand-
book of the American Revolution. The most ex-
tensive accounts, apart from the general his-
tories, are Richard Frothingham's Siege of Boston,
and Dr. Ellis's, in the Evacuation Memorial.
Of contemporary material, the most important
sources are Sparks's Washington's Writings;
Life of Joseph Reed ; Life of General Greene;
Gordon's American Revolution ; Colonel John
Trumbull's Autobiography ; Thacher's Military
Journal ; Heath's Memoirs ; with additional mat-
ter in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., May, 1859 ; and
papers in Almon's Remembrancer, and Force's
American Archives. There are letters in the Life
of Dr. John Warren ; in the Life of George
Read ; in Abigail Adams's Letters ; etc. Various
camp diaries are in existence : David How's,
New York, 1865 ; McCurtin's, published by the
Seventy-six Society; Dr. Belknap's, in Mass.
Hist. Soc. Proc., June, 1858 ; Ezekiel Price's, in
Ibid., Nov., 1863; Paul Lunt's in Ibid., Feb.,
1872; Samuel Bixby, in Ibid., March, 1876; Sam-
uel Sweat's letters, Ibid., December, 1879 ; diary
in Hist. Mag., October, 1864 ; Aaron Wright's
diary in Boston Transcript, April n, 1862;
Craft's journal in Essex Institute Collections, vol.
iii. ; letters in N. E. Hist, and Geneal. Reg., April,
n8
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
1857, etc. Also, a number of orderly-books, —
William Henshaw's, April 20 to Sept. 26, 1775,
in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., October, 1876, and
printed separately, 1881, with additional matter
(there are later ones of Henshaw in the Amer.
Antiq. Soc.); Israel Hutchinson's, in Ibid., Oc-
tober, 1878; Glover's, in Essex Institute Col-
lections,\: and among those not printed, — that
of John Fenno, secretary to the commander-in-
chief, April 20 to Sept. 6, 1775, in Massachusetts
Historical Library; one kept at Cambridge, in
the Pennsylvania Hist. Soc. Library ; Jeremiah
Fogg's, in Harvard College Library; and Wil-
liam Lee's, in the Historical Society's Library.
An order-book of the Continental army, June 21,
i775~Oct. 9, 1775, the property then of Asahel
Clark, of Woodstock, Conn , is noticed in Daily
Advertiser, Nov. n, 1880.
The Massachusetts Archives are rich in illus-
trative documents, and Force's American Ar-
chives give many of the orders. References to
sources of information regarding the daily life
within the British lines are made in a note to
Mr. Scudder's chapter in this volume.
Three well-known novels in some degree
depict the events in and about Boston during
these Revolutionary days : Cooper's Lionel Lin-,
coin, Mrs. Child's Rebels, and Hawthorne's Sep-
timiiis Felton.
Material for determining the rank and file of
this Patriot army is at the State House, in what
are called the Massachusetts Revolutionary Rolls.
A return of the main guard at Cambridge, 1775,
is in vol. xxxvi. p. 267. Rolls of the army at
Cambridge, in 1775, are contained in vol. xiv.
Lists of the field, staff, and company officers of
the Massachusetts regiments in 1775 (sixty-six
colonels, sixty-one lieut.-colonels, one hundred
and thirty-two majors), are in vol. xxvii. p. 197,
etc. Other lists of the field and company offi-
cers of Massachusetts regiments, 1775-76, and
of officers of sea-coast companies, are in vol.
xxviii. Full lists of the colonels of Massachu-
setts regiments, from 1767 to 1775, are in vol.
xxviii. p. 84. Pay-rolls of companies for sea-
coast defence, 1775-80, are in vols. xxxvi. and
xxxvii. Company rolls of various dates, 1776-
8i,are in the vols. xvii. to xxiv. As a rule, the
rolls at the State House, before 1774, are in-
cluded in the series called Massachusetts Ar-
chives; but from 1775 to the end of the war
they are arranged in what is called the Massa-
chusetts Revolutionary Rolls. Various rosters of
the regimental officers are printed in 4 Force's
American Archives, ii., iii.; and in Colonel Wil-
liam Henshaitfs Orderly-Book.
THE NAVAL SERVICE. — The Massachusetts
Archives, vols. clxiv. to clxxii., contain docu-
ments relating to privateers commissioned from
1775 to 1783. They have been indexed by Dr.
Strong, first chronologically and then alphabeti-
cally, by the names of the vessels. The earliest
Boston vessel named was the " Lady Washing-
ton," of thirty tons, April 22, 1776. Then come
for the same year the following : " Yankee,"
" Adam," " Hannah and Molly," " Warren," " In-
dependence," " Boston," " Langdon," " Wolfe,"
" Speedwell," " Viper," " Phoenix," " Washing-
ton," "Eagle," "General Mifflin," " Hawke,"
" Satisfaction," " Reprisal," " American Tartar,"
" Hancock."
In 1777: ".Buckram," "General Mercer,"
" Revenge," " American," " Freedom," " Mars,"
" Fancy," " Cleora," "Charming Sally," " Union,"
" Betsy," " Sturdy Beggar," " Bunker Hill," "Har-
lequin," " Friend," " Cumberland," " Starkes,"
" Lizard," " Active," " Resolution," " Congress,"
"America," "Washington," "Pallas," "True
Blue," "General Arnold," "General Lincoln,"
" George," " Lydia," " Lively," " America."
After 1777 the number increases, and the in-
dex shows three hundred and sixty-five vessels
in all, as commissioned and belonging to Boston.
In the Revolutionary Rolls, vols. v.-vii., are
many of the bonds given by the owners of these
vessels. There are also numerous bonds in the
Massachusetts Arc/lives, cxxxix. 93, etc. Clark's
Naval History of the United States gives the names
of three hundred and forty-two English vessels
captured by the Continental privateers in 1776.
See also The Remembrancer and Cooper's Naval
History. More or less account of the beginnings
of the navy, and of naval successes, will be
found in Frothingham's Siege of Boston, pp. 260,
269, 308, and in the Lives of Manly, Tucker, and
the other commanders. An abridgment of Shep-
pard's Life of Tucker is in the N. E. Hist, and
Gencal. Reg., April, 1872. Admiral Preble (N.
E. Hist, and Geneal. Reg., 1871, p. 363; 1872,
p. 21 ) gives a list of armed vessels built or fitted
out in Massachusetts, 1776-83, which is com-
piled chiefly from Emmons's Statistical History
of the United States Navy. Lists of Massachusetts
war vessels, 1775, are in Massachusetts Revolution-
ary Rolls, xxvii. Volume xxxix. of the Revolu-
tionary Rolls contains the rolls of various State
vessels, namely, — Brig " Massachusetts," 1776,
1777 ; brig "Tyrannicide," 1777-1779 ; brig
" Freedom," 1775-1778 ; ship " Protector," 1779-
1782 ; ship " Tartar," 1781 ; brig " Hazard,"
1777-1780; ship "Ranger " 1777; ship " Mars,"
1780, 1781 ; sloop "Defence," 1781, 1782. Other
navy rolls, largely of privateers, are in vol. xl.
Officers of armed vessels, 1775, 1776, are in Mas-
sachusetts Revolutionary Rolls, xxviii. 130. Massa-
chusetts Archives, vol. clvii., so far as it relates to
maritime affairs, consists largely of accounts of
supplies and ordnance furnished armed vessels.
There is much also in the Pickering Papers.
CHAPTER III.
THE PULPIT, PRESS, AND LITERATURE OF THE
REVOLUTION.
BY DELANO A. GODDARD,
Editor of the Boston Daily Advertiser.
r I "HE famous discourse of Jonathan Mayhew, in the West Church, in
-*- 1750, on the Sunday following the anniversary of Charles the Martyr,
has been fitly called the " morning gun of the Revolution." J Since the
restoration of the monarchy this anniversary had been observed in Eng-
land as a national fast, when the clergy were required to read the service,
or preach a sermon against disobedience to authority. Many intelligent
persons were at this time apprehensive lest the prelacy should be in-
troduced into New England ; and they suspected that even the missions
of the church were a cover under which religious liberty was to be sac-
rificed. Mr. Mayhew, then in his thirtieth year, and in the full vigor of
his ripe and manly powers, took this occasion to preach three discourses
against the pretension of unlimited submission and non-resistance to au-
thority ; in which, with ingenious audacity, he " unriddled " the mysterious
doctrine of the prince's saintship and martyrdom, and set forth with singu-
lar boldness and eloquence the principles of free civil government. The
last of these discourses,2 with portions of the two preceding it, were at
once printed in England and America, and excited profound emotion in
both countries.
There were at this time eighteen churches and religious societies in
Boston.3 The intolerance of opinion and the severity of pulpit manners
prevailing during the greater part of the first century had in a measure
passed away. Prince, Colman, Mayhew, Chauncy, Sewall, Eliot, and less
conspicuous ministers introduced more generous views of faith and life,
and at the same time set the example of a style in preaching comparatively
simple and pure, formed upon good models, and tempered by good sense
and unaffected sincerity. The higher departments of learning were pur-
sued by the clergy with steadily increasing spirit. The classics, philosophy,
1 J. Wingate Thornton, The Pulpit of the and Non- Resistance to the Higher Powers; -with
American Revolution, p. 43. [The West Church some Reflections on the Resistance made to King
is shown in the frontispiece of this volume. — Charles /., and on the Anniversary of his Death.
ED.] Boston, 1750.
2 A Discount Concerning Unlimited Submission 3 Mass. Hist. Col., iii. 256-266.
I2O THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
dialectics, science, and the best literature were studied next to the Bible, as
aids to the presentation of its precepts and doctrines. The " five points of
Calvinism," long insisted upon with strenuous energy, were yielding before
original and independent study of the sources of all truth. Faithful and
devout ministers, while holding fast to the essentials of the Orthodox faith,
questioned the extreme interpretations thereof till then prevailing, or re-
jected them altogether. They were at the same time devoted lovers of civil
liberty. The general and artillery Election sermons, — the first given the
last Wednesday in May, at the meeting of the General Court, when coun-
sellors were chosen ; l the second at the annual election of officers of the
Ancient and Honorable Artillery, — greatly contributed to the Revolutionary
spirit. Copies of the sermons were given to the members of the General
Court for distribution; and during the year the country pulpits resounded
with the sentiments of these state discourses. The whole church-going
people were thus enlightened in speculative and practical politics to a de-
gree unknown anywhere else in the world.2
Mr. Mayhew was one of the most outspoken of these preachers, and
came to be recognized as a prophet of the new dispensation. He began his
career with an eager thirst for learning, united with a deep religious spirit.
He formed for himself habits of methodical reading and systematic reflec-
tion, thus early laying upon a rock3 the foundations of his faith. His
ministry was a prolonged conflict. The clergy of the town for a time stood
aloof from him ; and when he was at last admitted to ministerial fellowship,
the Episcopal controversy renewed the strife in another form. His first
printed discourses on the right of private judgment, and of freedom of in-
quiry for moral and religious truth, gained for him the degree of Doctor of
1 [The earliest of these election sermons is one by Samuel Langdon, before the Provincial
that for 1634, and from that time to the present Congress, at Watertown, May 21 ; the other by
the roll of the preachers' names is complete, ex- William Gordon, before the House of Repre-
cept for fifteen years. The latest list of such sentatives, July 19. In 1780, Simeon Howard
is that prepared by H. H. Edes, and appended delivered the usual one ; and Samuel Cooper
to the Rev. C. E. GrinnelFs sermon, printed in another, at the beginning of the State Consti-
1871. The earliest of the sermons preserved tution, October, 25. — Ed.]
is that of Thomas Shepard, delivered in 1638, '2 [See Gordon, History of the American Rev-
and printed, from the original MS., in the N. E. olution. — ED.]
Hist, and Geneal. Reg., October, 1870, p. 361. It 3 "Having been initiated in youth in the
is not known that any was ordered to be printed doctrines of civil liberty, as they were taught by
before Richard Mather's, in 1644; and it is not such men as Plato, Demosthenes, Cicero, and
known that this was printed (Records of Massa- other renowned persons among the ancients ;
chusetts Bay, May 29, 1644) ; and the same state- and such as Sydney and Milton, Locke and
ment can be made regarding Thomas Cobbett's, Hoadley, among the moderns, — I liked them :
. in 1649. The earliest known to have been print- they seemed rational. And having learnt from
ed was John Norton's, in 1661 ; but this was not the Holy Scriptures that wise, brave, and virtuous
issued from the press till 1664. In the mean men were always friends to liberty; that God
while John Higginson's had been delivered and gave the Israelites a king in his anger, because
printed in 1663. The Boston Public Library they had not sense and virtue enough to like a
Bulletin, January, 1881, contains a list of those free country ; and that where the spirit of the
known to have been printed. During the period Lord is there is liberty, — this made me conclude
covered by this chapter, sermons were delivered that freedom was a great blessing." — Dr. May-
every year except 1764, when the small-pox pre- hew's Sermon on the Repeal of the Stamp Act,
vailed in Boston. In 1775 there were two, — 1766.
THE PULPIT OF THE REVOLUTION. 121
Divinity from one of the Scotch universities, — always prompt and generous
in recognizing eminent talent in the New World. These were followed by
the celebrated sermons already mentioned, as well as by other discourses on
the nature of government and the principles of civil liberty, through which
he became identified with the able men then building, better than they
knew, for the independence of the colonies.
In the Episcopal controversy, which greatly stimulated the literary
activity of the colony and created the liveliest interest among the learned
men of the country, Dr. Mayhew was a conspicuous figure.1 In this dis-
cussion it was maintained, on the part of the advocates of Episcopacy, that
the Church of England was the established and legal system here as in
Great Britain, and that other forms of Christianity only existed through
tolerance or permission. Dr. Mayhew, in behalf of the Congregational
churches and the dissenting interest, denied this ; and maintained that the
charters, especially that of Massachusetts, gave absolute authority to the
colonial government in matters of religion, and that there was no power in
Church, Crown, or Parliament to control or interfere with it. The dispute
thus begun was carried on for many months with deep feeling on both sides,
and by distinguished contestants in England and America. Grave political
questions, growing out of the efforts of the Crown to enforce oppressive
acts of trade, at the same time commanded attention. To these Dr. May-
hew gave the last expiring energies of his noble life. He died in 1766, at
the age of forty-six years ; being then, in learning, courage, and eloquence,
the first preacher in America. His printed discourses during the twenty
years of his ministry, nearly seventy in number, display remarkable origi-
nality and maturity of thought united with great earnestness and directness
of expression, a lively imagination, familiarity with books, and comprehen-
sive knowledge of the affairs of the world. His genius and accomplish-
ments were worthy of any age. The cause of liberty in the eighteenth
century had no worthier advocate.2
Dr. Mayhew's successor, the Rev. Simeon Howard, was also an Arian
in religion and a decided Whig in politics, though not of an aggressive or
controversial temper. The memorable event of his ministry was the seizure
of the church to be used as a barrack for the British troops during their
occupancy of the town. Many of his parishioners went with him to Halifax,
where he had warm friends, and where a pulpit was ready to receive him.
1 This famous controversy was begun by the fulness and distinction at the age of eighty-four
Rev. East Apthorp, an Episcopal clergyman, re- years. He was a sound scholar, amd a learned
presenting in Cambridge the " Society for Propa- and ingenious writer. Sprague, Annals of the
gating the Gospel in Foreign Parts."' He was a American Pulpit, v. 179.
son of Charles Apthorp, merchant of Boston, 2 Bradford, Memoir of the Life and Writings of
and was educated at Cambridge, England. He Dr. Mayhew, Dr. Charles Lowell, Historical Dis-
returned to this country upon his admission to courses; Dr. Charles Chauncy, Funeral Sermon ;
holy orders, filled with zeal for his calling; but Dr. Bartol, West Church and its Ministers. [See
the time was not favorable, and, after a checkered also Dr. McKenzie's chapter, in Vol. II., p. 244,
ministry of six years, he went again to England, where a portrait is given ; and Dr. Peabody's in
where he died in 1816, closing a life of great use- the present volume. — ED.]
VOL. in. — 16.
122 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Returning to Boston the following year, Dr. Howard devoted his energies
to restoring his scattered society, and succeeded, through many personal
sacrifices. He was not eminent as a preacher, though his style is described
as perspicuous and flowing, and his method as exact and luminous. His
simplicity of character, his modest and gentle manners, and the unfailing
charity of his disposition under trying circumstances won 'for him the love
of his people and the respectful homage of the community. He received
the degree of Doctor of Divinity from the University of Edinburgh ; was
an overseer of Harvard College, and a zealous member of many societies
for the promotion of charity, literature, and religion.1
The ministry of the Rev. Thomas Foxcroft of the First Church was
closed by his death in 1769. Educated in the Episcopal church he early
changed his views, and for half a century had been a consistent adherent
of the New England faith and order of church government. He was a
stanch Calvinist, and in his earlier ministry was a persuasive and popular
preacher; but through prolonged illness his powers had lost their fresh-
ness and vitality before the crisis came.2
Next to Dr. Mayhew in the group of eminent pre-Revolutionary divines,
though his senior by fifteen years, was Mr. Foxcroft's distinguished col-
league and successor, Dr. Charles Chauncy. When the great debates, theo-
logical and political, were coming on, he was just passing middle life, and
he gave to them all the powers of his highly gifted nature. During this
exciting period the interests of Christianity and of civil government were
inseparably bound together. The Rev. John Wise's masterly plea, De-
mocracy, Chrisfs Government in CJiurcli and State, written for the time of
Andros, was reproduced in form and spirit by the clergymen and Patriots
of the time of Hutchinson. From 1750 to 1776 this principle had no more
watchful and determined champion than Dr. Chauncy. Side by side with
Mayhew he fought the good fight for ecclesiastical freedom ; and when
that gallant warrior fell, he continued the fight with redoubled spirit. For
ten years he pursued the Episcopal controversy with unsparing energy, as
well as with great learning and strength of reasoning. The contest began
with his Dudleian lecture on the " Validity of Presbyterian Ordination
Asserted and Maintained," and closed with " A Complete view of Episco-
pacy,"— a work of deep interest at the time, and regarded as the ablest of
his controversial writings.
Dr. Chauncy was equally confident and alert in the advocacy of his
political principles.3 He knew the Colonies were right. He knew they
1 The Rev. John Pierce, D.D., in Sprague's Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, i. 310,
Annals of the American Pulpit, viii. 65-67. [See 311.
also Dr. Peabody's chapter in the present vol- 3 Mr. Thornton, in the Pulpit of the American
ume. — ED.] Revolution, p. 114, prints Dr. Chauncy's Thanks-
2 He was critically skilled in the Greek Ian- giving sermon, preached July, 1766, on the oc-
guage, a theologian of some excellence, and the casion of the repeal of the Stamp Act, entitled
author of many sermons in print. Emerson, " A Discourse on the Good News from a far
Historical Sketch of the First Church. See also Country," with the comment : " This sermon,
THE PULPIT OF THE REVOLUTION. 123
would triumph. If human strength were wanting, angels would fight in
their behalf. When his friends, familiar with the extreme literalness of his
usual discourse, suggested the imprudence of trusting to active recruitment
from that quarter, he persisted in saying that such would be the fact. In-
deed his style of writing and preaching was severely, not to say defiantly,
plain. He had no comprehension of poetry, and he despised rhetoric. It
is said that he prayed he might never be an orator. His enemies replied,
with more wit than truth, that his prayer was undoubtedly granted. Ex-
pediency had no place in his view of divine or human economy. Duplicity
and affectation he ranked with the basest vices. His ministry with the First
Church continued sixty years, from the time of his ordination until his
death in 1787. His printed works include sixty sermons and controversial
tracts, and some volumes of theology.1
Of like political principles, but in every other respect a striking con-
trast to Dr. Chauncy, was the accomplished minister of Brattle Street
Church, the Rev. Samuel Cooper. He was an elegant rather than a pro-
found scholar, and a most attractive and popular preacher. He is described
as of a fine and commanding presence,2 with a voice of great sweetness
and power, uniting with remarkable fluency, as well as grace and force of
expression, appropriateness and energy of thought, which never failed to
arrest and hold attention. In his religious opinions he was moderately
liberal. From the beginning of his ministry he was deeply interested in
public affairs, and every occasion for service found him ready to take his
full share in them, with Mayhew and Chauncy among the clergy and with
Otis and Samuel Adams among the popular leaders. He resisted the min-
isterial plan of taxation, through the pulpit as well as through the news-
papers, to which he was also a frequent contributor.3 His zeal won for
him great influence, and his counsel was sought by all the leading Patriots
an admirable historical picture, drawn by a mas- 8 "Of the writings which alternately stimula-
ter, himself a leader of the hosts, abounds in ted and checked the public mind in that season
facts, discusses the great principles involved of stormy excitement, there were perhaps none
with energy and power, and with the calmness of greater efficiency than those of Dr. Cooper,
and precision of the statesman." If other hands launched the lightning, his guided
1 Dr. John Eliot writes : " Dr. Chauncy was the cloud." — Palfrey, Sermon preached to the
one of the greatest divines in New England. No Church in Brattle Square, July, 1824, pp. 16,
one, except President Edwards and the late Dr. 17. Dr. Allen (Am. Biog. Diet.) says: "His ser-
Mayhew, had been so much known among the mons were unequalled in America for elegance
literati of Europe, or printed more works on and taste." [The somewhat famous verses on
theological subjects." See also W. C. Fowler, the "Boston Ministers," written in 1774, thus
Ckauncy Memorials ; Tudor, Life of James Otis, characterize him : —
p. 147; and Sprague, Annals of the American " There's Cooper, too, a doctor true,
Pulpit. [A portrait of Dr. Chauncy is given in Is sterling in his way ;
Vol. II. p. 226, with a characterization of him by To Jerry Seed, all are agreed,
Dr. McKenzie in the same chapter. See also . He.we11 b,e '*!Td ma.y'
In politics, he all the tricks
Dr. Peabody's chapter in the present volume. Doth wonderously ken ;
— "- ED.] In *s country's cause and for her laws,
2 [SeehislikenessinVol.il. p. 242. The^-r- Above most mortal men."
ton Magazine, 1784, p. 191, has a portrait of him These verses, by "a lover of jingle," are
engraved by J. Norman. See William Sullivan's printed in the N. E. Hist, and Geneal. Reg.,
account of Cooper in his Public Men. — ED.] April, 1859. — ED.]
124 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
of the time. He was the confidential friend and correspondent of Dr.
Franklin and of many men of eminent learning in the colony and in Eu-
rope ; while his personal attractions and knowledge of the world won the
intimate regard and friendship of all cultivated persons, except of the
officers and supporters of the Crown, by whom he was cordially hated,
and for whom he showed no mercy. He was careless about his perma-
nent reputation, was publicly identified with no great historical incidents,
and left little printed material to explain his undoubted influence and
popularity. He was always a good friend to literature, and a useful
patron to Harvard College, of which he was once elected president;
and was one of the founders of the American Academy.1
The largest congregation in Boston, during the few years preceding the
Revolution, was that of the New North Church, under the ministry of the
Rev. Andrew Eliot. He was in his religious views a moderate Calvinist, a
direct, forcible, and practical preacher, rarely indulging in controversy. He
opposed the establishment of Episcopacy by law, and the introduction of
bishops ; but it was the principle only, and not the practice, to which his
conscience objected. When at the close of the siege the troops and the
Loyalist inhabitants thought proper to leave the town, it was through his
persuasion that Mr. Parker of Trinity was induced to remain, in order that
Episcopalians might not be left wholly without a shepherd. During the
siege, when his family and many of his friends had departed, he was himself
induced to stay and continue the services of his church.2 His only com-
panions of the same faith were Samuel Mather and Mather Byles, with
whom, it may well be supposed, his relations were not intimate. He con-
tinued to preach regularly, but with the circumspection which had always
distinguished him, and which his present situation especially required.
Even in times of the highest excitement Dr. Eliot had resolutely closed
his pulpit against political discussions, to the serious displeasure of many
persons who never thought of doubting his fidelity. Though sometimes
taunted for his scruples, he was a warm friend of America, and was early
and constant in his advocacy of the claims of the Colonies ; but he never
allowed political feeling to interfere with his literary zeal any more than
with what he regarded as his religious duty. When Hutchinson's house
was mobbed, many valuable books and manuscripts, including that of the
second volume of the History of Massachusetts Bay, were rescued from de-
struction through the efforts of Dr. Eliot. He was frequently urged to
accept the presidency of the college, and, upon the death of Dr. Hoi-
yoke, was chosen to that office, which he declined. His unusual natural
gifts were cultivated in many directions. " He sought and intermeddled
with all knowledge." Some of his occasional discourses were printed as
they were delivered; but, like Dr. Cooper, he was careless of his own
1 Tudor, Life of James Otis, p. 155; Sprague, - [Ilis letters from Boston during the siege
Annals of American Pulpit, \. 440; Lothrop, are printed in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1878, p.
History of the Church in Brattle Square. 281. — ED.]
THE PULPIT OF THE REVOLUTION. 125
fame, and was only induced after much persuasion .to print a single
volume of his sermons.1
The Rev. Samuel Checkley, Jr., minister of the Second or Old North
Church, passed away in 1768, at the close of a pastorate of twenty-one years.
He was a zealous preacher, rising at times to a certain sort of eloquence, and
is said to have been gifted with uncommon felicity in the devotional exer-
cises of public worship. He printed very little, and appears to have taken
no part in public controversies.2 His successor, the Rev. John Lathrop,
preached acceptably until the occupation of Boston by the British, when
he left the town, and his church was destroyed. Returning to Boston the
following year, his ministry was transferred to the New Brick Church, with
which the society of the Old North was a little later united. From a strict
Calvinist, Mr. Lathrop came to adopt the views of Mayhew and Chauncy,
taking his church with him. He was an ardent Patriot, and mingled in the
scenes of the Revolution with great zeal and untiring industry.3
The Rev. Ebenezer Pemberton had come to the New Brick Church in
I754,4 but his ministry was not fortunate. The North End was the centre
and hot-bed of the Patriot movement. The residents and church-going
people generally were stanch Whigs, with whom Mr. Pemberton had little
sympathy. Governor Hutchinson was a member of his congregation, and
the minister shared the unpopularity of his august parishioner. When, in
1771, Mr. Pemberton, almost alone among the Boston ministers, attempted
to read the Governor's proclamation for the annual Thanksgiving, the
Whigs, constituting the greater part of the congregation, indignantly walked
out of meeting. From that time the attendance fell away. The minister's
health perceptibly failed, and in 1775 the house was closed. Dr. Pember-
ton — he had been made a Doctor of Divinity by the College of New
Jersey in 1770 — retired to Andover during the siege and died in 1779,
his connection with the society never having been formally dissolved.5
Though the Old South Church was the centre of many of the most ex-
citing events of the Revolution, its ministers took a less conspicuous part in
them than those of the neighboring churches. The Rev. Joseph Sewall,*3
"father of the clergy," died in 1769, after a pastorate of fifty-six years. He
1 Eliot, Historical Notice of the New ATorth of the American Pulpit, viii. 68-72. [See also Dr.
Church ; Sprague, Annals of the American Pitl- Peabody's chapter in the present volume. — ED.]
///, i. 417-421. [See Vol. II. p. 243. — ED ) 4 [See Vol. II. p. 244. — ED.)
'2 The Rev. Henry Ware, Jr., Historical Dis- 5 " His piety was of that fervent kind for
course, p. 23.' [See Vol. II. p. 240. — ED.] which his father was remarkable. He had not
8 " Dr. Lathrop's preaching was rather prac- his superior powers of mind, and in his old age
tical than doctrinal ; rather sensible than ornate, grew unpopular in his delivery, though in for-
His. sermons were short, not ordinarily exceeding mer times he drew crowded assemblies by his
twenty-five minutes in delivery. There was little manner His reading, however, was extensive,
of the appearance of labor about them ; and the and his sermons correct in diction and style,
thoughts which he expressed, though judicious He was a Calvinist according to the principles
and pertinent, were generally obvious to ordinary of our fathers." — Dr. John Eliot. See also
minds, and partook, like the character of his Dr. Robbins's History of the Second Church, pp.
own mind, more of convictions than originality." 189-193.
The Rev. John Pierce, D.D., in Sprague's Annals * [See his portrait in Vol. II. p. 241. — ED.]
126 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
was a minister of the old school, preaching the " faith of the fathers " in
its strength and purity. Dr. Eliot speaks of him as more remarkable for
piety than for learning ; yet he was a good classical scholar and familiar
with general literature. He possessed a large estate, which he used with
great liberality and public spirit.1 Dr. Sewall had two colleagues during the
later years of his ministry,2 and his pulpit after his death remained vacant
for nearly two years, when John Hunt and John Bacon, young men of talent
and promise, were settled together. Hunt was of a sensitive and delicate
nature, of affectionate and winning manners, and a persuasive preacher.
Bacon was of a disputatious and somewhat overbearing temper, and fell into
difficulties with his congregation over the doctrines of atonement and im-
putation. The ministry of both came to an end in 1775, — that of the former
by his early death, the latter by dismissal.3 Soon after, the congregation
was broken up, and the church was converted into a riding-school for the
troops then occupying the town.
The New South Church passed, in 1773, to the pastoral care of the Rev.
Joseph Howe.4 The storm was gathering rapidly when Mr. Howe began
his ministry. " In the harbor," he wrote to an absent friend, " nothing is
seen but armed ships ; in the town, but armed men." He was not daunted
by them. He performed the duties of his office with zeal and fidelity till
the storm broke in 1775, when he returned to Connecticut and died the
same year. He was a preacher of remarkable promise, and his death was
lamented as a genuine calamity.6
Of the Congregational clergy, Dr. Mather Byles stood alone against the
Revolution. He tried, with undoubted sincerity, to avoid politics in his
pulpit; but his opinions were too notorious, and his sharp tongue was too
free, to make his position long an agreeable one either to his people or to
himself. He left his congregation in 1776, and in the following year was
denounced in town-meeting, and tried by a special court for remaining in
Boston during the siege and praying for the king. He was sentenced to be
confined on board a guard-ship with his family, and sent to England, but
the sentence was not enforced. The last twelve years of his life were spent
in retirement; and the favor of the community was never restored to him.
In the prime of his life he was blessed with a wonderful flow of spirits, with
great skill and command of language, and had some claims to be regarded
as a pulpit orator. 6
The Rev. Samuel Mather continued his ministry, without marked inci-
dent, over an independent congregation in North Bennett Street, during the
1 Wisner, History of the Old South Church, portrait, and some characterization of him, is
p. 33. given in Vol. II. 227, 228. A small oval engrav-
2 [See Vol. II. p. 240. — ED.] ing of him exists, S. Harris, sc. Pelham's en-
3 [Ibid., p. 241. — ED.] graving is inscribed: "Mather Byles, A. M. et
4 [Ibid., p. 243. — ED.] V. D. M. Ecclesiae apud Bostonum, Nov. An-
5 Allen, Biographical Dictionary; Sprague, glorum, pastor. P. Pelham, ad vivum pinx. et
Annals of the American Pulpit. fecit." There is some mention of his Revolu-
6 Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, tionary tribulations in Mr. Scudder's chapter in
PP- 376, 382; Tudor, Life of James Otis. [His the present volume. — ED.]
THE PULPIT OF THE REVOLUTION. 127
siege and until his death in 1785, when his congregation returned to the
Second Church, from which he had taken their fathers forty-three years
before. He was on the side of the Col- - _
onies during the whole struggle, but C^y
took no active part in the discussions
attending it. He had an inherited taste
for collecting and preserving books,
part of which were destroyed at the burning of Charlestown, and the rest
were widely scattered after his death.1 He contributed little to the literature
of the time, except a youthful life of his father, and a work now rarely seen,
designed to show that America was known to the ancients, beside occasional
sermons and theological tracts.
The piety and talent of the Rev. Samuel Stillman gave dignity to the
Baptist church at this time of its low estate. He was called to the pastorate
of the First Baptist Church in 1765, and came to be recognized as one of
the most powerful preachers of the Revolution. The unattached crowd
thronged his obscure little church at the North End upon the report of his
homely and effective eloquence; and distinguished strangers, as well as
sailors just home from their voyages, met every Sunday morning in its
narrow aisles. His piety is described as of the type of Hervey, Watts,
Doddridge, and Tayson.2 Nothing stirred him to deeper feeling or more
moving eloquence, — sometimes scathing, sometimes pathetic, — than the
prevailing inattention to religion. Yet he and his church were as deeply
interested as any in the state of the country, and no more potent voice was
raised in its behalf than that of Mr. Stillman. He was an early patron of,
and most liberal contributor to, Brown University, and. was devoted to lit-
erature and all good causes. The Second Baptist Church had regular
services under the ministration of the Rev. John Davis and the Rev. Isaac
Skillman, neither of whom left any special mark. Mr. Davis, during his
brief ministry, won much respect by his ability and zeal. Backus speaks
of him as " the pious and learned Mr. Davis," and the contemporary no-
tices of his death eulogized him as a man " of fine parts, an excellent
scholar, and a pretty speaker."
"Refined his language, and his reasoning true,
He pleased only the discerning few."8
The Episcopal clergy of Boston, in common with their friends in the
other colonies, espoused the cause of the Crown. They derived their eccle-
siastical authority from the Church of England, and loyalty to the king was
a part of their worship. Whatever their individual inclinations might have
been, they felt bound in a double sense to resist a sentiment and policy
1 [See Vol. I., Introduction, p. xviii. For Dr. chapter in the present volume, where a portrait of
McKenzie's mention of him, see Vol. II. p. 229. Stillman is given. — ED.]
— ED.] 8 Backus, History of the Baptist Church in
2 The Rev. Dr. Jenks in Sprague's Annals of New England ; Sprague, Annals of the American
the American Pulpit. [See also Dr. H. M. King's Pulpit.
128 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
which must end in open rebellion ; and they resisted at the risk of prop-
erty, reputation, and life itself. Most of them were sent into exile after
fighting a losing battle, and the few who remained were subjected to great
losses.
King's Chapel, the first Episcopal church in New England, was at this
time in a flourishing state. The Rev. Henry Caner, who had been called to
the rectorship in 1747, was highly educated and endowed with many popu-
lar qualities. Early in his ministry, and largely through his efforts, the first
chapel was built. The university of Oxford conferred upon him the degree
of Doctor of Divinity. While British ships were in the harbor and British
troops in the town, many of their officers regularly worshipped at the chapel.
Dr. Caner's ministrations were in every way acceptable to them. There is
no trace of his printed discourses later than 1765 ; but the traditions of his
preaching give him a high rank as a man of learning and fine intellectual
endowments. He was a devoted Loyalist, and with the departure of the
troops in 1776, when it was evident he could no longer be useful in this
field, he went with them to Halifax, and soon after returned to England,
where he died at a great age in I792.1
The ministry of the learned and venerable rector of Christ Church, Dr.
Timothy Cutler, was nearly ended. The grand figure and commanding
presence, described by Dr. Stiles, was bowed by infirmity when the crisis
began, and in 1765 he passed away at the age of eighty-two years. He was
a sincere and consistent Episcopalian, but took no part in the controversy.2
His assistant, the Rev. James Greaton, continued the services a year or
two, when he was succeeded by the Rev. Mather Byles, Jr. This litigious
minister had just " dismissed himself," according to the church record, from
the church and congregation in New London over which he had been some-
time settled, and became a zealous convert to Episcopacy. He was called
to the vacant rectorship of Christ Church, and discharged his duties there
without marked distinction until the siege, when he again deserted his flock,
and left the colony. He was a fierce Loyalist, and was afterward proscribed
and banished.
Trinity Church was, at the time of the Episcopal controversy, under the
partial care of the Rev. William Hooper.3 Sabine classes him among the
Loyalists, but there is no evidence of his having taken any active share in
the contest, even in its earliest stages. He died in 1767. He is described
as a man of native nobility of spirit and vigor of mind, uniting with a fine
eloquence great clearness of thought and earnestness of purpose.4 The
Rev. Samuel Parker became assistant rector of Trinity at the death of Dr.
Hooper. He came to the post at a crisis, and stood by it through many
and great trials. He conducted the services during the siege with remark-
1 Sprague, Annals of the American Pitlpit, v. ministry is given in the Historical Magazine, sup-
61, 63; Greenwood, History of King's Chapel, plement of 1866, p. 124. — En.]
[See also Dr. Brooks's chapter on the"Epis- 3 [See Vol. II. p. 229. — ED.]
copal Church." — ED.] 4 The Rev. Dr. Bartol, in Sprague's Annals of
2 [An account of the Rev. Timothy Cutler's the American Pulpit, v. 123.
THE PULPIT OF THE REVOLUTION. 129
able discretion, meeting as well as he could the conflicting claims of his
church and of his country. He read the service without interruption, in-
cluding the prayers for the king, until the Sunday following the Declaration
of Independence, when he was publicly warned of the peril of repeating
them. The vestry authorized the omission of the offending portions, and the
services continued as before. Mr. Parker became rector soon after the war,
and received from his congregation many marks of favor for the prudence,
patience, and zeal with which, under distressing circumstances, he had kept
the holy fire burning on the altar of Trinity.1 He became the second
bishop of the Eastern Diocese in 1803, but died a few months after his con-
secration. His assistant,2 the Rev. William Walter, succeeded to the rector-
ship until 1776, when he also resigned his charge, accompanied General
Howe to Halifax, and went thence to England. He was a zealous sup-
porter of the Church and the Crown, and vindicated his sincerity by the
sacrifices he made for them. He returned to Boston in 1791, became rector
of Christ Church, and remained in that relation till his death. His dis-
courses are described as rational and judicious, " recommended by an elo-
cution graceful and majestical." He was no knight-errant; but, while
adhering to his own convictions with quiet persistency, he exercised a large
charity toward all forms of faith and Christian worship.3
The Rev. John Moorhead, born near Belfast and educated at one of
the Scotch universities, came to Boston with a number of Scotch-Irish
families in 1727-28, and established public worship, according to the rites
of the Scottish Kirk, under the name of the Church of the Presbyterian
Strangers. In 1744 the meeting-house in Long Lane, afterward Federal
Street, was built for them,4 and Mr. Moorhead continued his services here
until after the Revolution. He published nothing, and his papers were lost
or destroyed at the evacuation ; but tradition represents him as a forcible
preacher, administering the law and the gospel with zeal and fervency. He
and his people were warm friends of liberty. During the same period the
Rev. Andrew Croswell conducted the worship of an independent society,
with some success, in the church of the French Protestants in School
Street. He was a stalwart Calvinist, a deadly foe of Arminianism and
" new lights " of every kind, always disputing with the ministers, and
usually with those who came nearest to his own way of thinking. He pub-
lished several occasional sermons, including a narrative of the founding
and settling of his own new-gathered church. A little later Robert
Sandeman, the Scotchman, after holding meetings at the Green Dragon
Tavern and other places, expounding his new doctrines, had a house of
worship built for him near the Mill Pond in 1765. He rejected belief in
the necessity of spiritual conversion, representing faith as an operation of
1 Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, 3 Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit, v.
v. 296. His publications were limited to a few 226, 233.
occasional discourses. 4 [A view of it is given in Vol. II. p. 513.
2 [See Dr. Brooks's chapter. — ED.] — ED.]
VOL. m — 17.
130 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
the intellect, and speculative belief as quite sufficient to insure final justi-
fication. He was the founder of the sect of Sandemanians, which survived
from the time of his coming to these shores until 1823, when the last light
was extinguished.1
The Press, like the Pulpit, reflected all the varying phases of current
opinion ; but its prevailing force was on the side of the freedom of the
Colonies. It had conspicuous faults and great virtues ; it was personal and
partisan to a degree only tolerable in times of conflict ; but it was frank,
honest, impulsive, and sincere. Of the ebb and flow of events from 1760
to 1775, and the corresponding revulsions of popular feeling, the newspapers
give the only satisfactory record. Slow and meagre, for the most part, in
presenting the general news of the world, they teemed with resolves, pro-
tests, instructions, appeals, sermons, satires, and arguments of every kind,
— some addressed to the reason and conscience, some to the strong pas-
sions, and all of them written with remarkable force and energy.
Of the pre-Revolutionary journals,2 the Neivs-Letter and the Weekly
Advertiser remained on the side of the Crown. Rfchard Draper, who con-
ducted the News-Letter, with its numerous combinations,3 from 1762 to
1774, was an uncompromising Loyalist. The crown officers and their friends
had free access to his paper at all times, and defended their cause often
with marked spirit and ability. During the occupation the News-Letter
had no competitor. The few numbers preserved show that the military au-
authorities of the town found it a most serviceable instrument, and that they
and their friends used it without scruple and without decency. Upon the
death of Richard Draper in 1774, the News-Letter was conducted by his
widow, with the assistance already indicated, until the departure of the
troops compelled its suspension.
The Weekly Advertiser, in its later years, had limited influence and com-
paratively few readers, but was never wanting in zeal for the Government.
During the last two or three years (i773~75) the authorities, seeing that
the tide was now setting strongly against them, secured new and able
writers for its columns. Thomas, who remembered the paper well, says
that in 1774 it was the chief organ of the Government party. It was pat-
ronized by the officers of the Crown, and attracted much notice from the
Whigs. The Chronicle, 1768-70, published by Mein & Fleming, the lead-
ing booksellers, was neutral at first, afterward independent ; but from the
beginning there was in it an undertone of depreciation of the leading Whigs,
1 Drake, History of Boston, pp. 618, 619; 1768-69 the News-Letter and the Post-Boy and
Allen, Biographical Dictionary. Advertiser entered into a quasi partnership, — one
2 See the chapter on the " Press and Litera- half of each paper being official, and called the
ture of the Provincial Period," in Vol. II. .}fiissac/ntsetts Gazette, " published by authority ; "
3 The title in 1762 was the Boston Weekly the other half of each bearing its own separate
News-Letter and New England Chronicle. The title, and published independently. The Weekly
year following, the title was changed to the Advertiser also took for a time the name and
Massachusetts Gazette and Boston News-Letter, decorations of the Post-Boy. Thomas, History
and was decorated with the king's arms. In of Printing, ii. 25, 59.
THE PRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 131
which soon developed into open hostility. Its literary pretensions, exceed-
ing those of any other journal in the colony, did not save it from becoming
the vehicle of gross calumnies. The people
resented its attacks upon their leaders as in-
suiting to themselves ; and John Mein, the
editor, was forced to seek in his own country a refuge from their indignation.
He went to Scotland in 1770, and never returned.
Thomas and John Fleet, who succeeded to the estate of their father, the
founder of the Evening Post, just before the storm arose, tried hard to
follow his example and to publish a strictly independent journal. Whigs
and Tories fought their wordy battles in its pages with great vigor, and the
young publishers for a time kept their balance well. But neither party
was long disposed to be tolerant of such neutrality. The issues of life and
death were too serious to be trifled with in that way ; and the proprietors,
after unavailing protests against what they regarded as encroachments
upon their rights, discontinued the publication in 1775, the last number
mentioning, but not attempting to describe, the " unlucky transactions " of
the preceding week, — meaning the battles of Lexington and Concord.
One incident of many illustrates the difficulty of maintaining its neutral
position among the heady currents of this excited community. The Lib-
erty Song,1 written by John Dickinson, of Philadelphia, and first printed in
the Pennsylvania Chronicle, July 4, 1768, afterward in the Boston Gazette,
was reproduced by request in the Evening Post a month later, " for the
1 This song was much in vogue in North The travesties were promptly answered by
America for several years, and was written under Whig verse-writers, their last song closing, —
circumstances related in the following letter. " In freedom we're born, and like sons of the brave
The time was immediately after the refusal of We '11 never surrender,
the Massachusetts Legislature to rescind the But swear to defend her,
.. j, juiuir r T> And scorn to survive if unable to save."
circular-letter addressed by the House of Rep-
resentatives to the speakers of the several [The song seems to have been first publicly
Colonies. sung in Boston, Aug. 14, 1768, on one of the an-
Dickinson to Otis. niversarie* of the Stamp Act disturbance; the
PHILADELPHIA, July 4, 1768. Massachusetts Gazette of August 18 recording the
DEAR SIR. -I enclose you a song for American free- assembling of a great number of "persons of
dom. I have lone since renounced poetry ; but as indiner- ,. - ... TT ,, , , , . . .
ent songs are frequently very powerful on certain occasions, credlt at Llberty Hall> where the much admired
I venture to invoke the deserted Muses. I hope that my American song was melodiously sung; " where-
good intentions will procure pardon, with those I wish to upon " the gentlemen set out in their chariots
please, for the badness of my numbers. My worthy friend, an(j chaises for the Greyhound Tavern in Rox-
Dr. Arthur Lee. a gentleman of distinguished family, com-
posed eight lines of it. Cardinal de Retz always enforced bul7' where an elegant entertainment was pro-
his political operations by songs. I wish our attempt may vided. After dinner the new song was again
be useful. . . sung, and forty-five toasts drunk. After conse-
Your most affectionate, most obedient, servant, crating a tree to Liberty in Roxbury, they made
JOHN DICKINSON. . , T . _, .
an agreeable excursion round Jamaica Pond ;
The song was to the tune " Hearts of Oak," and jt is anowed that this cavalcade surpassed
and began as follows : — all that has ever been seen in America." This
" Come, join hand in hand, brave Americans all, famous Greyhound Tavern stood on the present
And rouse your bold hearts at fair Liberty's call ; Washington Street in Roxbury, opposite Vernon
No tyrannous acts shall suppress your just claim, -" * *
Or stain with dishonor America's name. Street. It was torn down during the Siege.
In freedom we 're born and in freedom we '11 live. (Drake, Town of Roxbury, p. 166.) A letter from
Our purses are ready ; Dickinson, in answer to a vote of thanks from
NotasslavSa'sfrtm^rnTonev we'llgive." Boston, is among the old papers (,768) in the
Tudor, Life of James Otis, pp. 322, 501. Charity Building. — ED.]
132
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
benefit of the whole continent of America." Parodies upon parodies fol-
lowed in subsequent numbers to the great indignation of one or the other
of the parties.
The most noted contributors to these journals were Joseph Green (mer-
chant, poet, and wit, though he took no part in the later political discussions),
JOSEPH GREEN.1
Samuel Waterhouse (of the customs service, a notorious libeller), Lieut-
Governor Oliver, Daniel Leonard,2 and Jonathan Sewall.3
Twenty years before the battle of Lexington, the Boston Gazette and
Country Journal was established in Queen Street by Benjamin Edes and
John Gill. It was printed on a half-sheet crown folio, afterward enlarged to
1 [This cut follows a crayon portrait by Cop-
ley, belonging to the heirs of the late Rev. W. T.
Snow. Perkins, Copley's Life and Paintings, p. 62.
A larger likeness, by Blackburn, is owned by
Miss Andrews of Boston. See Vol. II. of this
History, p. 429. Green was born in 1706, and
graduated at Harvard College in 1726. He was
a merchant of large fortune, and is said to have
had the largest private library in New England.
He died in England in 1780. — ED.]
2 [See the paper on Leonard, by Ellis Ames,
in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., June, 1873; an(^ Sar-
gent's Dealings with the Dead. — ED.]
8 " Did not our grave Judge Sewall sit,
The summit of newspaper wit ?
Filled every leaf of every paper
Of Mills and Hicks and Mother Draper ?
Drew proclamations, works of toil,
In true sublime of scare-crow style ;
With forces, too, 'gainst Sons of Freedom,
All for your good, and none would read
'em ? *
— Trumbull, McFingal.
THE PRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 133
a whole sheet, the title decorated with rude cuts of an Indian with bow and
arrow, and Britannia freeing a bird bound to the arms of France. A little
later Minerva appeared in the place of Britannia, holding a spear sur-
mounted by the cap of liberty, and just giving flight to a caged bird
toward the tree of liberty.1 Edes and Gill were both " men of bold and
fearless hearts," and welcomed the co-operation of the wisest and ablest
counsellors enlisted in the popular movement. Samuel Adams, Jonathan
Mayhew, Thomas Gushing, Samuel Dexter, and others, who had spent their
first emotions in writing for the Independent Advertiser, transferred their
eager talents to the new Gazette. James Otis, John Hancock, Samuel
Cooper, Josiah Quincy, Jr., John Adams, and Joseph Warren joined them a
few years later, and resisted through its pages the successive invasions of the
chartered rights of the colonies, with rich and varied learning, with argu-
ments drawn from the early conflicts of English liberty, and with fiery and
indignant eloquence inspired by a deep sense of injury and lively con-
tempt for the instruments employed to inflict it.
The publication of the " Novanglus " essays in 1774—75 was the most in-
teresting single event in the annals of this journal. The letters of " Massa-
chusettensis," reviewing the questions at issue, in the interest of the Crown,
had been printed in the Massachusetts Gazette, one of the names of the
Weekly Advertiser, addressed " to the inhabitants of the province." The
authorship was long a secret. From the skill with which the letters were
written, their singular moderation and breadth of view, they were attributed
to Jonathan Sewall, then attorney-general, a man of learning and talents.
It was more than a generation before the true authorship was assigned
to Daniel Leonard, of Taunton.2 They re- ^
viewed the progress of the popular discon- ^y
tent with much ingenuity, with the purpose O^""
of showing that the course of the English Government was founded in law
and reason ; that the Colonies had no substantial grievance ; that they were
a part of the British Empire, and properly subject to its authority. They
also urged that resistance was useless ; that the English nation had power to
enforce its right, and would exercise it.
John Adams returned from the Congress in Philadelphia while these and
other ministerial letters were filling the newspapers in Boston, and were
topics of conversation in all circles. He at once devoted himself to the
task of answering them in a series of letters to the Boston Gazette, with
the signature of " Novanglus." They were written with characteristic ve-
hemence of manner, but at the same time with remarkable clearness and
method, enforced with abundant illustration, and enlivened with original
humor. Mr. Adams showed that the Colonies in resisting taxation by au-
1 Buckingham, Reminiscences, i. 166, 120. Dr. fuse of her favors, and pregnant with blessings
Eliot, in Mass. Hist. Coll., vi. 69, suggests another for future times."
interpretation. The woman with the spear, he '2 [See Edmund Quincy's Life of Josiah
says, "may as well represent America in the Quincy, p. 380; C. F. Adams's edition of John
character of a female active in doing good, pro- Adams's Works, iv. 70. — ED.]
134 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
thority of Parliament avowed no new doctrine, but were consistent with the
course marked out for themselves since the first settlement of the country.
He declared with emphasis and fervor that the Colonies were no part of
Great Britain, and that the supremacy of Parliament was limited to the
dominions represented in it. He scornfully rejected the assumption that
America would not maintain her right, or that submission was to be thought
of because resistance was perilous. The last of these letters was dated
April 17, 1775. Two days later came the fight at Lexington, and the
debate was adjourned to the field of battle.
These revolutionary letters, written on the threshold of the war, illustrate
on both sides the ascendancy of reason over passion ; while they disclose
also the impassable breadth and fathomless depth of the gulf which sepa-
rated the contestants. Mr. Leonard's letters were reprinted in various forms
during the two years following. Nothing else of his composition compares
with them in brilliancy and force of statement, in variety of illustration, or
in the plausible manner with which he anticipated and parried the argu-
ments of his adversary. He was a gentleman of fortune, fond of display,
and was the original of Beau Trumps in Mrs. Mercy Warren's Groups.
Mr. Adams's letters were also reprinted and widely read during and after
the war. Together " they form a masterly commentary on the whole his-
tory of American taxation and the rise of the Revolution." 1
Other luminous and fervent writers contributed to the Gazette during
these interesting years, whose signatures, " Candidus," " Fervidus," and the
like, are all that is now left of them. With such co-operation the Gazette
became a great power in the community. Rarely in our history has a sin-
gle newspaper, with the ruling powers steadily against it, met a difficult
crisis with greater courage, maintained its principles with more splendid
ability, or exercised so powerful an influence over the minds of men.
During the occupation of Boston by the British troops the Gazette was
printed in Watertown, whither Edes had secretly conveyed an old press and
types sufficient for the purpose. He returned to town after the evacuation,
and with his two sons Benjamin and Peter, — Gill retiring from the partner-
ship, — continued the service with unabated zeal ; promptly collecting and
publishing intelligence during the war, and, through occasional contributions
of especial force and urgency, reviving the drooping hopes or stimulating
the flagging courage of the sorely tried Patriots. The great writers, how-
ever, who had strengthened the hands of the young printer in the beginning,
were drawn into the public service, or had fallen as early martyrs to the cause.
In losing them the Gazette lost also the power and influence of its earlier
days.
Isaiah Thomas began the publication of the Massachusetts Spy in July,
1770, in partnership with Zachariah Fowle. It was to be printed three times
a week, — once on a half-sheet, twice on a quarter-sheet, — and was designed
for mechanics rather than for commercial or professional readers. The
1 y. Adams's Life and Works, by C. F. Adams. Tudor, Life of James Otis, p. xvii.
A Weekly, Political, and Commercial PAPER ; open to ALL Parties, but influenced by None.
OL. I.] THURSDAY, March 7, 1771. [NUMB. i.
lUtjDAY. M,,.> s
S v> /
£\\'<^^/^
^=x?
A» 'a folemn and perpetual Memunai
Or ihe Tyunnj of ihe Bni,(h Ad
Yean i;6(. 1769. and i770: ,
Of ihr fatal anil dclWli-e Conic
q.rencei ol qua/tering Armies, mTime
f Price, m populguu Cities.
Of ihej'dicutonl I'ol.cy, and in
irrv>u5 Xbfurdily, of Supporting Civi/
GfWT*auta by a Military ftru
Ol ;he grot Duty and Neceffity of
irmly oppodog De/opufm in Ul fiifl
Approaches :
Of the dele(tab!e Piincip'et and ar-
ftrary Conduct of thofe Mi*ifltri in
(Uaifi who ad»rfeH, and of their
•/*»/i in Amcnca who defied, the
nuodutficmuf a Standing Army 10-
lo ('.is Piovincsm ihe Yen I 768 .
Of ihc irrefragable: Pmol wliicti
ihofe MTrniflei! themlelvei thereby
4>c4dacnl. pM*»GMQMBMw£
1$ by them admiiiifleicj, was wcalt,
wicked, and tyrannical
Of ihe vie Ingratitude and abo-
mmible Wicted.iefs of every /tmt
'ican. wbo abetted >nil encouraged,
ritherm Thought, Word or Deed,
ijie Eftabrimmem of i Standing Al
Of the unacrounta'j'e Conduct of
ihofe Civtl G«tv»Tiari. lbe immediate
keprefemaii-ra of hit Maj.lly, who,
ly IN fulling ihe Whole Leg flauve Au
thoiity of ihr Sti'e, and while the
Hood of the malT.cred Inhab!
•anu w«\ flo«ji-g in ihe Streets, pet
fiSed.in repeatedly difrtainvng til Au-
thority of iclieving Ihe People, by my
Ihe .eaft Removal of ,he froopi :
And t,f ihe favage Ciuelty of the
Immediate Perpetrators i
Biufnrwr Rtmimlirtt
That thu Jay. the F.l.h ol March,
it ihe Anmveifary of Preflon'i Maf
facre, in King-dreel, BoRon, New.
tnglind, 1770 ; in which Five of
h,i M-jeHy's Subjea, wr,c (lain, am
Si» wounded, b» the Difcharze of a
Number of MufkeH from i Party ol
Soldien under the Command of Cat*.
Ihomu Preflon.
GOD Save ihe PEOPLE!
SottfH M*nb 5. 1771.
'*" H U * S 0 A Y, l"
» B O.. S T 0 N.
P £" 7."^*' llft "* ™<'«'«J «' «h
Eollo, Mjffiicre, at noon, and afttr nine i
•he eveainj. all the bclla in town tolled ; an
W dark Wu exhibited 01 the chamber win
low* of Mr Re.eK-.m iheOld.Nonb fquar.
in* r "?nf(>"™' plim"1P' «P'««ni,r.t
inni- iwk window > monumental obe ,fl
•nta 10 f.oot the bufl of ,„..„. Seidei
«M».ft»flMd .hepeueflal. the name.,
k t? P"f°r' """""Kl by ihc fold,ery o
:'"« fifth of Ma<rb,and all iotnrxd IQ t*
»"• r?»«l vmh 'inn : On the back eroun
r J!t r"'1"* "" fint'» <"'»"• *g«« -1'
Ikffl 5**1 <*"» «' Seidet, in the attitud
* Bowl m.hcn bx itcwvej tut fatal *«tu>«
from the rrtirdernin hand* ol ihc infamouf
inloimer Richaidlun i and undo n, ihn
coupl-t.
Scidei'i pale ghoft fieDi binding Randt,
And vengeaiKe for tin death demand!
Irv ihe mirldle window wai i »iew of ihe mjf-
facie in King H-eer In ihe north wrndcw*
of l.ibetty r-efl, and trampling underfoot t
fuid.« hugging a ferpeni, the emblem of a
military tyrnny.
An Oration cnnriming a brief account ol
ihe maflacre . ol the imputaiioni of ireafoo
ind rebellion with wh.rh the loo'i o( power
endeavoured to brand ih: inhabitant*, and a
difcanl upon Ihc nature of treafons, w,rh
tome condderationa on the ilirean of the
ButiOi Mir»0ry<oiake away the Maltivhu-
fettj charier, w» alfo delivered that evening
11 the K.aory-Hail hy Dr. Young.
Above a year hu now elapfed Gnce poor
rttle innocent Scider received a tnmdeiout,
mortal wound, which fbon put an end to
that life, which ONE only hai a right to
take away. The fuppofed murderer hai
had a fair tmi agreeable to the good lawi
.f the land, and been found G U 1 L T.Yi
9ut not yet punifhed , and flill
fami Stlltir, ttMt//rm lk' lp'*i*/fmMJ
Ci/r. JuDice. Juftice --Wwr ftV/urW.'
borm fcme if", two Teagtiei bom uiif-
• antland.corvelfillg witHuef) Mh*> on ihr1
^Tr«*Vi«4,^(^u^ ihe ir»A,njnd lezigtbenotg. U
.he dayi .-Ah firtih. fajd one, n it the
pleafintcft place 1 ever fa» IP my life ,
| <he</l* aj^mrr Ah indeed, faid the other,
it il much pleafanltt now the Jaji art twi
wwi/ii longer.
>• IfkM m,t, m amount «i Ik:,, fir ,i
IHfJl tutu."
A fiwck of an Eirthquake w» felt in ihn
town, MaibVhead, Sec. laft Sunday moinin|>
1 he (baking waa but jutt peiceptible.
dom in ihe nueriff, ard putting the tneoi or
• i lian on trie tcf|Wtnc'eni. 1 he'« feem in
decJ bui iv.0 ai'jnen in the world lo onich
10 by partie! who would endeavour 10 Cettlt
maiter* among ihentfelvei Auihotity b
>bn/c whole capacities are runfefTeJIy ilfhci
cr.t. i« wnia fo lefiaclory that nothing bi,
ihe fear of a miner can keep them in oidet
1 o winch of ihnf: cUfea man of fenfe ano
(p.rrl v/ould willingly join btmfe.l, I will
leave all men 10 determine. In which fca1*
the proud, rgnoiani, haughty and (elf-con
ceiled are It be found, n well tnown. No
n| picicnd for the fupport of civil and icligi
foma burn with indignation ar^ainfl any one
• ho c» take ihc freedom to cal on; ol
iheir fjvounte noiioni into queflion. The
Ipi'ii of a lepublic being a foinl of rqua'it)
abhori fucb feiocioui bigotry. The f.riv
• u« the ueieiminaiiom of uV tight. ihe,»f>,
ne honouiable lo O4he.iwa whom ihey plan
mpl«ii conhdcnce.aodfcor^ingiobeiboujht
inotani of cyopofuiona they never und.r-
fl.«d, and conlrquemly can neither expl.ua
.01 defend . 1 he ne«i feaKh iheir ambition
pun them upon, u to find a fuficicm power
«• fiience a gamfiyer by any means f.,, or
wal ll u in this condition of things ihe
<BiUieo of w.fdnm cry out for liberty of
peeclt, to defend rh; doHrioei i-f then fu.
•'m.e paieni I Bui fro* Ihe da)i of John
hu celedial kingdom hat f.ff,red ,»le.«,
md nuihmg but Valence will eva defend il,
note than force it. Humaa lite u indeed a
«aif4ic, and he who will notoppofcan in-
•ader. mull league lo become a hewer ol
•»uod and diKtci of water lui ihi wi/cle
1 he l.-cunly of pioperty and the freedom-
of fpeech, fays an emifteni Winer, ilwars go>
r'gethe', and in tbofe «retcheij CDunmei
•heie j man cannot call hu tongiWlstaowc,
lound ' Tttult -> /lai, nu.-r/rr,' aJfo proh,b<
ted alt Jifpcti*c, oi.tr nlitim. The real
Irutb b Itnfl religion 'a. id civil polry aic fr
Vhoevcr would overthrow ihe libe ty at ih«
•anoai, mutt begin by deftroying Ihe freedom
•1 fpetch i a thing terrible to public trailoti.
feperale them inlallibry'deftroyi both, arf
the flau vrtHtJl 'would dltceiiiage decent m
dmct o/ either will make llery had, bccault
tuyfiur^ir^uirauncutleiiUbKttr:,, ,
XTod betHwen ujvjn rrian Tin icaftjn nrm
form him olthc origin, and iMign of hu be
ing , of the relation he fuftairt to hu crea
(or, and every fubordmatc fupenor, equal
and inferior ; and lbe dunes which naturally
Thu being the foundation and Icnpe of all
aw! civil and facted, the fyAems immediate
y deduced from thefe corfiderations are call
ed the f; ite.i.i of natural hw, of natural teli
gion, meaning the law and religion which
force themfelvei upon the minda of every
honefl and Tuber man wru> fenoufly felt b.m
elf about a candid and rational eqquir) into
the nature, reafon and relation of thingt.
The fame flill fmall voice wh'ich ienden a
man a true fon of liberty in politick, will
render him a calm, patient and difpaffionatc
reafener upon reSgioui fuhjedi i mUiti a
vi'H nufifl,, i> Ihe infcnptioo of the fcai,
with which he impreOei all hu writings.
And though confciou! of hii aveifion to dc-
and meafure aflet himfelf. In thu there .1
great f.fely, for none can'tell when Go4
may tike away ihe moft important Elrj^h,
and much will fuch a one be atfecled at hu
departure, if he reflefli that any part of hu
maliei'a council hai been kept back from the
faithful Ions of the ptouheti he leaves behind
The perfon who could leave a number if
•ben,. ELEUTHEWUS.
At the Jntclligenct>Officr,
Kep« by GRANT WEfcTER,'
There u to be fold,
PHiladelphia Flour and Irc'li,
Maryland Floor and Bread, Weft.Io.
rlia and New. England Rum. B,aody, Ma.
deira and oilier W ines, Briftol beef, race and
ground ginger, French Indigo, Ruffla dock,"
new and (ccond-hand VtfleU of difjcrenl
forts fecond hand Sails and Aochan, ftnnj
compleai feu of laigc Scale* and Weitil,,
lever J genteel Houfes in town, and awtial
good Faims in the Counu^onc in particnlu
abovt (en miles from thu town, very asrvci.
bly Ctuaied for a Gentleman1! Seal, with a
good houfe and ban on ir, which will le fold
under the value far ready money i) pan of
a v<ry valuable Lead Mine in ihe county o*
Suffolk, a few Lngl.fh Goods and fuod/y e-
tber article* very cheap for ll>e ca(h.
WAN TED, Several Sum, of Money for
different perfona, who will give good fecumj
foi the fame, either real or sxifonal Ltk«.
wile. Bills of Eachange, lor whicb the raW}
money will be paid,
N.a GOODSofanyfo-tareulenin
and foU. bills of fc»char.gt negoriared, and
any kind at Brokerage done at laid Oatce oo
reafanable comOliBions.
FO, »he MASSACHUSETTS SPY
A* ACROITIC.
A » Negrne* and L — ri in judgement agree 1
N o wonder that vice with her am la lu free 1
D evice and low cunning do commonly (land !
H elated in friendOiip and join hand in hand 1
E iperience doth teach ua thai poor blacl
and white !
W hen blended together, u one, will unite !
Mr. THOMA..
WITHOUT freedom of thought, fayi
M.. Guidon, ibere can be no fuch
thing as wifJom ; and no fuch thing as pub-
lic Liuer.-y without freedom of fpectb. Thia
ii the right of every man, which ought to
know no nounda but the injury of ofhen.
Licentioutncfc in fprech extend* to the denial
dence, and our accountab'eneft to him for
our actions ; tiu; obligations 'to m-nitam the
t'anquiltiy and promote the felicit) of the
cc.Ttmunil^ (o which we; join ourfetvrs a*
t verf< of condition we could reafcnably . x-
n pe£i them to do unto us. To make light of
-' thefe. fundamental principle! of the law and
religion of nature, la a public injury, tending
, to deftroy that reverence Tor virtue, and ib
, horrence to vice and immorally, which are
, indeed the principal fecunties we ha* for
; ihe good behav,onr of mankind. Between
>f the freedcm of fpeeclt her&contended for and
) ihe injurious ufurpalron, (here feem to be evr-
t dent marks of dif.-riminatlon, the former
i meaning no more ih*.. the modeR and fen
ous reafoning* of man w.fji man, upon equa
e terms ; the (alter an overbearing dxgmslifm
a 01 dommcci.rg ndicule, aflumuif feat * i(
without s compafs, would a&eaa&ly the uait
of the pretended patriot, who would will ng-
ly forego any opportunity of intruding all
he belonged in every needed article of pie-
fervative knowledge.
An abfolute authorilf, in indUpuiaUe
ftandard, muf) evifi Ibmewhere) olberwife
conieft muil be perpetual. To imagine thu
auihonry tepofeJ in any being fubjedi (o er-
ror or (millet defign, n too abfurr) for ihe fu
peiflinon of a p«pift : he therefore clnalhs
htf fupreme ponnrjwitb a Derfec3ion of wbich
the fuprenie Jehovah alontis worthy, ll u
therefore in ihe nature and conflitu-ion of
thing!, dire6ed by his unerring wifdom, we
are to look for the ,<ru>i of nattm, the abfo-
lure, perfeS and unchangeable utlt of Gtxt
The immoderate love of caff which brut,ne>
K>O many cf our freciei, engages them !o
MUSICK. md iWuficil Inftru-
menti, til. Hiiffivxto, Spmnect,
Violiru, Piano Fa tea, Gutatafs, ana. Ger-
man Flutes j u ht fold try Mr. Ptorsar,
at Mn. Holbrook'i upori ihe Common/
A FEW Ca/ti of Choice ntw
RICE, and feveral barrela of Sonth-
Catulina Pitch, lo he foM on board lbe Hoop
Mollv, lying at Green's wharf.
MR. JOAN'* Concert, which
was re be this evening, is poflpcuetj
till ThtfifJayiheaiftinrrani. _
•»• Smu 1u*>f'< hi'Mft*'', «*» «*
tri Mild /• •»n 1" «*w" •/'«*!
ji norsuoA t»u •»« 't^ *
'"j.'^B. fcWrr otfubriti**.
136 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
second number appeared early in August, and regularly thenceforward for
six months, meeting with good success. Thomas, however, was ambitious
to undertake a larger paper than had yet been printed in New England ; and
on March 7, 1771, the Spy was issued on a whole sheet, royal folio, as a new
weekly publication. The title of the first number was as given in the ac-
companying fac-simile ; but it appeared later between two rude cuts, — the
Goddess of Liberty on the left ; and on the right, two children with a basket
of flowers, — and this was followed by the lines from Addison's Catd : —
" Do thou, Great Liberty! inspire our souls,
And make our lives in thy possession happy,
Or our deaths glorious in thy just defence.'1
Thomas was then in his twenty-second year. His paper was at first open
to Whigs and Tories alike, but his own partialities were so pronounced that
the friends of the Government one by one withdrew from him. The au-
thorities, failing to win him to their service, used all their powers to cripple
and discourage him ; but their threats and blandishments were alike un-
availing.1 His group of writers grew steadily bolder and more defiant.
One of them, whose name has never been known, in a series of forty letters
with the signature of " Centinel," discussed the issues between Parliament
and the people with learning and spirit, taking for his motto the warning
lines from the ballad of Chevy Chase : —
" The child that is unborn
Will rue the hunting of that day."
He startled even the Whigs, and alarmed not a few of them, by the bold-
ness with which he challenged all rulers whose authority did not rest upon
the natural rights of man. Other writers of like spirit poured oil, not upon
the troubled waters, but upon the angry flames. Joseph Greenleaf, over the
signature of " Mucius Scaevola," denounced the Governor and Lieut-Gov-
ernor by name as usurpers, and invoked resistance to their authority. His
letter was pronounced " the most daring production ever published in
America." Thomas was prosecuted for libel, but the grand jury refused an
indictment. Greenleaf was summoned to answer before the Governor and
Council, but he ignored the summons, and his commission as justice of the
peace was publicly cancelled. Meanwhile the Spy grew more bitterly hos-
tile to the Crown and its agents, and its defiance of all restraint attracted
the attention of the continent.2 Thomas was hung in effigy in many places,
1 "The Government hoped to buy the young his wife, July, 1774, quotes Mr. Winthrop, his
printer: he was not in the market. It tried companion on the eastern circuit, as complaining
to drive him : he could not be driven. It tried to of the Boston press for printing accounts of every
alarm him: he was without fear. It tried to popular commotion or disturbance, while in other
suppress him ; but he baffled and defeated every provinces such occurrences were very properly
attempt to this end, and gained new strength concealed. "Our presses in Boston, Salem, and
and influence by every conflict." — B.F.Thomas, Newburyport," he says, "are under no regula-
Memoir of Isaiah Thomas, p. 31. tion, nor any judicious, prudent care. . . . The
2 This excessive zeal was not wholly ap- printers are hot, indiscreet men ; and they are
proved by the elders. John Adams, writing to under the influence of others as hot, rash, and in-
THE PRESS OF THE REVOLUTION. 137
and his paper was burned by the hangman. Letters scattered among the
people and the soldiers in the early autumn of 1774, mentioning Adams,
Bowdoin, Hancock, and others as marked for speedy destruction in the
event of an outbreak, also named " those trumpeters of sedition, the
printers Edes and Gill and Thomas," as not to be forgotten.
The writers for the Spy were more abusive and exasperating than those
in the Gazette, but both were pursuing the same end. Thomas took his
ground not merely upon the rights of the Colonies under the Charter, but
upon the rights of human nature. Hancock, writing to him April 4, 1775,
from the Provincial Congress, then sitting at Concord, superscribed his
letter: "To Isaiah Thomas, Supporter of the Rights and Liberties of Man-
kind." From the time the Spy took its position it was resolute and un-
compromising. With abstract discussions of the questions of law and right
involved in the struggle, its writers mingled unsparing denunciations of
Crown and Parliament, until the country was made familiar with the pur-
pose of resistance, and in the fulness of time was eager to accept the appeal
to force. The writers for the Gazette were more deliberate, more elaborate,
and, as a rule, more highly cultivated. Their illustrations were more
learned and copious. Many of them hesitated before declaring openly for
independence, toward which their logic compelled them. Others, rilled
with fiery zeal, blazed with equal fervor.
The temper of the Spy, and its incessant activity, made Thomas a marked
man ; and he prosecuted his work at great personal peril. Just before the
battle of Lexington the town became too hot even for his ardent spirit.
He sent his family to Watertown early in April, and prepared to follow
them. He packed his presses and types, with such movable effects as could
be hastily gathered together, and on April 16 " stole them out of town in
the dead of night." They were sent to Worcester, where the Spy reap-
peared on May 3 following, with the title again changed to the Massachu-
setts Spy, or American Oracle of Liberty. In its new field, separated from
the great spirits who gathered round it in Boston, the Spy lost something
of its early fire ; but its influence was to the end of the contest undimi-
nished.1
judicious as themselves, very often." — Familiar the fair fields of Europe." — Mass. Hist. Coll. \'\.
Letters of John Adams and his Wife, p. II. 64, 79.
Dr. Eliot, in his Narrative of Newspapers, is * " The press was used by the Patriots with
still more censorious : " The writers [for the great activity and effect. The Boston Gazette
Spy] were most of them young men of genius, and the Massachusetts Spy were the principal
without experience in business or knowledge of Whig journals printed this year (1773) in Bos-
the world ; some of whom, perhaps, had no prin- ton. The Gazette had for a long time been the
ciples to actuate them, or were enthusiasts if main organ of the popular party; and it was
they had principles, and wanted judgment where through its columns that Otis, the Adamses,
their virtue did not fail. . . . The same spirit and Quincy, and Warren addressed the public. In
principles lead to a dissolution of all society, fact no paper on the continent took a more ac-
and, like more modern publications on equality tive part in politics, or more ably supported the
and the rights of man, are direct attacks at all rights of the Colonies. Its tone was generally
authority and law; and, being carried into effect, dignified, and its articles were often elaborate,
would have made confusion here, as they have The Massachusetts Spy was more spicy, more ha
since dissolved the government and desolated the partisan spirit, less . scrupulous in.jnatter;
VOL. III. — 18.
138 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
In the summer of 1775, the printers of the Essex Gazette, Ebenezer and
Samuel Hall, moved from Salem to Cambridge, established their printing
office in Stoughton Hall, and continued the publication under the name
of the New England Chronicle, or the Weekly Gazette. It was intensely
Whig in its sympathies, and had several accomplished contributors. Early
the following year, Boston being no longer in a state of siege, the Chronicle
was moved across the river to School Street, " next door to Oliver Crom-
well's Tavern ; " was bought by Edward Eveleth Povvars and Nathaniel
Willis, who changed the name to the Independent Chronicle and Universal
Advertiser, and consecrated it anew to " the glorious cause of America."
Samuel Adams gave his never resting pen to its service, and John Hancock
was among its occasional contributors. It was ably and earnestly on the
side of liberty through all the vicissitudes of the Revolution.1
It will be observed that the Revolutionary Press derived its chief influ-
ence from the constant use which able writers and statesmen made of it.
Their spirited arguments, exhortations, and appeals were carried through
its agency over every threshold, and, being copied from journal to journal
in all the colonies, gave cumulative force and energy to the popular feel-
ing. With such assistance the press, in spite of its limitations, was made
to represent in a peculiar sense the form and body of the time. It was
a period of prevailing intellectual as well as moral exaltation. Dreams of
liberty and self-government, under new conditions, seemed at last about
to be realized. The sense of national life was becoming intense and vivid.
The terms America, Country, Commonwealth, Nation, came into common
use, or acquired new meanings. Phrases implying or asserting a new distri-
bution of public powers, became familiar: all men are by nature equal;
kings have only delegated authority; the people may resume supreme power
at their pleasure; judges are servants not of the king but of the common-
wealth, and are bound by the charter. Franklin's warning before leaving
England, transmitted through Lord Howe to Lord North, — " They who
can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve
neither liberty nor safety," — became a standard maxim, and was often used
in calls for public meetings and appeals to public sympathy. Books on
personal and public rights, treatises on government, standard writings on
canon and public law, were more and more sought for. Milton, Harrington,
Sydney, Marvell, and Locke were favorite authors. Bacon and Bolingbroke
were often quoted. Montesquieu and Priestley had many disciples ; cheap
reprints of their works were extant before and during the Revolution.2
aimed less at elegance of composition than at seller that in no branch of his business, after
clear, direct, and efficient appeal." — Frothing- tracts of popular devotion, were so many books
ham, Rise of the Republic, p. 51. as those on the law exported to the plantations.
1 [For some account of magazines and other The colonists have now fallen into the way of
periodical publications of this time, see " The printing them for their own use. I hear that
Press and Literature of the Provincial Period," they have sold nearly as many of Blackstone's
in Vol. II. p. 387. See also S. F. Haven, Am. Commentaries in America as in England." — Ed-
Antiq. Soc. Proc., October, 1871. — ED.] mund Burke, in the House of Commons, March
2 "I have been told by an eminent book- 22, 1775.
ryot., 0.3 -,
INDEPENDENT
AND
UNIVERSAL
THURSDAY,
MASSACHUSETTS- STATE:
POWARS AND WILLIS,
THE
if"
nnvid fy f
From the P«»»»TtTamA Jautu AL, Oslo. 9.
rj, CONSTITUTION,./ tit COM«O»
Wt.lTH ./PtHHITl»*KIA. a»fmU,fMl
fjxGENEKAL C O NVB.N^TIO N. ,/«•/>./
/•r <»«r ,««r> >. am*
yȣ trr*. 1776. <t
SifiimlHT »8, 1776-
WHEREAS all government
ought 10 be in(luut= J ud iu p.
potted tor the Iccunty lad pro
tcctij.i of the community is
fuctT. tod to enable the. indi
viduib who compote it to en-
joy tttcn natural nghu ud
lit other b'eftng
beiio'.ed
of guvei
d whenever tnele gr<
c not obtained. the people
habitants of on i.ommun Wc.l.n have.
rauca 01 p.ote...iou only, keieiofore atk
i promote
• i U.c in
i confide.
• llcg
Kjog has nut only withdrawn tnat prv<eclion.
com 11
»ba:cu vengeame. a molt «.ruel a..d ui lull war agajoll
them, employing tOe/cm no. unl» uc troops ul threat
Bruno, but loreign mercenaries. Uva6es, and Haves,
for thr avcwed purp jfe of reducing tacm to a total
and ahjeft fubmiHioo to the defpouc domination of
the BnuEh Parliament, with maujr other acts 01 ty-
rancy, (mote fully let fonb in the declaration of
Cocgreu) whereby all allegiance and fealty to the
fiu King and hi* fucccBon a-e diffolved and at an
tad, acd al! power and authority derived from hun
ccaicd ui ihele Colonies, AND vVHiaiAi ititab-
foiutely uccefiary for the welfare and fafety of the in-
habitant! of laid Cbloniei, that they be henceforth
tree and independentStates, and that juft, permanent.
and proper Potms of Governoient exilt in every pait
Of them, derived from, and founded on the authority
of i.'* people only, agrcrable to ihe dueclioos of the
tunoi.blc American icmgrefl WE, the reprefcn<
tativesol the Freemen of I'cnnfjlvuia, u> General
Convention met, for the eaprclt purpofe of framing
fuels a Goveinment, conKUing the goofncJa of tuc
great Governor ot thcUojv.rie (wno alone knows
tasvhat degree of earthly hapyiueli mankind may
attain by perlc&iog trie art* ol Government) in per
anting trie people cdthis State, by common conical,
ud without violence, deliberately to lorm for thtm-
fclrea fach juft rules 11 they mall think befr for go-
Terning then future fuciety i aad b«ing fully con-
vinced that it u our indifpenfable duiy to ertaolife
luch original principlo 01 Government ai will beil
promote the general hippmefs ol the people of tnu
State and their ooftcmy. and provide lor future im-
p:ovcuiei.rj, wuboul paroality for, or preiudice a-
goiDJt any parucuUr clafa. feet, or denomination of
mu whatever, DO, by virtue of ike authority veiUJ
lifli the followiAg Uedjkrmuon of GLignta and Frame
V Ooreiomctu, to be TUH CONVl'll 111 ION ol
Out Common-Wealth, aad t* remain in force there-
in forc>er, unaltered, except in fach articla a> Iball
nercaitcr on ejc^cricuca bv louad to require improve-
meni, and which Hull by ue faax auUorily ot tne
people, fairly de'egat«d aa Una Ftamc ot GovernmcM
direct*, be amendcu or unproved for the more etfcc-
cul obtaining and iwiHiug THE GREAT LNL)
AND D£u
kcicia be.o<t
C H A f 1 E R I.
X DECLARATION of the k.gnu of the Inhabi-
taati of Ihe Stale uf
,
. A independent, acd bave
iHr«M tod
THE
ADVERTISER.
NOVEMBER 7, 1776.
BOSTON: rainTia ar
Oppofitc the NEW Court- Houfe.
enjoying and defending nfe and liberty, arqtSrin
podefliogand protecting p-operty, aod purfuing Aac
Obtaining happinefs and fafely.
It. Thit all men have a natural and unalienable
right to wordup Almigbcy Goo. > cording to
And that no man ought or of right can be compelled
to attend any rellg Out worfltip. or ereO or lu^pori
any place of worfhip, or maintuo any mi, utry , con
trary to, or agnnlt, bis owa fiee will and coufenr
Nor can any man, <vho acknowkilgu the bong of i
Goo. be juJtly deprived or abridged of aoy civil righ
as a citizen, on account of his religious (cotirncnt:
or peculiar mode of religious worlhip . And that nc
authority can or ought to be veftea in, or alTumed
TV, any power whatever, that Oiall in any cafe u
111. That the people of th.i State
the right
i worfnip
ivc ihr (olc.
l&uneibeiateroAJ police ol the Ume
IV Tii.i 4iJ power being originally .ohcreot ID.
and confequcndy deprived from. in« People , there
fort all olfuer* ui Oovcrnmcnt. wtiether legifltiive u
executive, are their iru.lces uid (crvutu, uid it ill
V. Th
amcni u. or ought to be, intlitu-
t benc&i, proteoLioo and iecuriiy
parncular emoiuuicoi or advantage of toy 6ngli
mao.f.mily or fet of men who tuc a put only of CAM
cooimuoity . Aod th*i the community hath an n
dutmable. uaalienablc and uidefcafible right to r
form, alter or abol.fe Governmcni ID fuch ounm
u Iball be by thai commuoi.y judged moil conducive
co the public we.J
VI. Thai toole who arc employed
(Iraioed fram oypreflioa. the people have a right, at
fuch period* At they may cQmk propcf, to reduce
toetr public officers to a private ttauoo. and fupply
he vacAQCJC* by certain and regular cJcAiooi.
VU. That aJJ elections ought to be free . aad
that all free men having a fuificieaf evident common
intcraftwuh, and attachment to the comcnunuy, hare
a right to ele«tt omcer*. or DC elected isto oA.e.
VIII. That every member of locicty lia;h a right
o be protected in tne eojoyoietu of hie, liberty and
property, and therefore u bound to contnbuu hi*
proportion toward* the expejice of that protection,
od yield h» per tonal (crvue. when nccellary. or an
qujvikoi thereto : Bui no pan ol a man's pioperty
aa be juAly takeo from him. ot applied tu public
fe>, without bu owo canfeot, or thai of bi> legal
eprcftBtatifea : Norcao any man «no u ooo/cwnu-
uily fcrupulou* ol bearing arm*, be juflly compelled
thereto, it he *.U pay fucn cquivUeot Ner arc the
people bound by any law*, out luch a* they have to
IX That in all protections for ci
is council, to dem«oJ me caule and
of hu
I for evidence in m» ravour. aad a fpeedy public
trial, by an impartial |v*y ol Uie country, without the
iimoos coaleni he cannot be found guilty . Nor
caahe be compelled tw give evidence ag.jn(l himfcK
can aoy man be ju.tly depntrd of hu liberty,
exxepf by Uw |aw» ol me Und or tue judgment ot
bu pceri.
X That the people hare a right to bold Oicm
'd, their houic*. papen and poilcSiotra tree <rom
'ch or feizuro , and (hocforc warraao wittraiu
oatfci or amrmacioos hr& made, affording a fuflicieM
adation lor them, and whereby any om<.cr Of out
ger may be commaadod 01 required to f«ai«B fuf-
.t-,d placb, or to (eizc aoy pcHon ot pcrfoni, h>»
>kegr,
rfi.srelped. J properly
XI. That in all
• right to ttial by jar/, which oujr.uo ttlieU laued.
X1F. Thai the people bave a right to freedom of
fpeech, and of writing a.,d publiQimg their f«na-
menn . therefore the freedom of the prefs ought oot
co be reftrained.
XIII. Thai the people have a rigkc to bear umt
for the detente of ihcmfclves and the Stau i aad w
liberty, they ought nui to be kept up : And that th«
militirr Ihould tx kept under llnft [qoordlnioon w,
and governed by, the civil power.
XIV. That a trequeni .ecurmce ta the tod*,
mental principles, and a 6t m adhcrrncc co jolbce. mo*
deration, temperance, irduliry, ud fngjluv, am
abfoluiely neccJTary to preserve the bleiiogi ol liber.
ty. and keep a Government tree : 1 he people oigfiC
therefore to pay particular anentio* to thcle poiota^
in the choice ol officers and rcpneteatatiwt, and hava)
a right 10 eiifl a due and conltaai regard to them,
from their legiflators end magiftrates in be tnafcinr
and raccuiing fach laws as are necclTary for (he good
Government of the State.
XV. Thai all men have a natural inherent right
ro emigrate from one State to another that will' re*
ceive them, 01 to form a new State in vacant conn*
tries, ot II fuch countries u they can purchafe, when-
ever they think that thereby the; may prooot*
their own happinefi.
XVI. That the people bare i right ro aflembU
together, to consult for their common good, to ififlriscl
their representative!, ud apply to the legiflaiiiK for
redrefj uf grievances, ty atldrefs, petition or reman.
ftiucc.
CHAPTER
n.
PLAN - FRAME ./GOVE RN ME! XT.
StSnm i. 'T~VH E Common- Wealth or Sot« of
1 Pennfylvama fhall be governed
hereafter by u AtTcmbly of the Reprcfentauvesof the
Freemen of the fame, and the Prebdcatud Cooncil,
S,.i i. The fupreme legiUslive power fhaD be
veiled in a Houfe of Reprefenutivei or the Frecmco
of the Common- Wealth or Srat««f Pcnrjfylvarju.
StS. j. The fupreme executive power Hull bo
veiled in a Pra&dent and Council.
S,a 4 Couna of JuS.ce (ball be eftabhlbed in
the city of Philadelphia ud u every county of this
Stile.
Si.1 5. The Freemen of this Common- Wei) lh
d their fons (hall be trained ud armed for its def-
ace, under fuch regulation*, reftriftiooa and excep*
HIS as the General Affembly Oiall bj law direej.
prcferving always to the people the right of chitting
heir Colonel and all commilTiooed officers under that
and in fuch manner ud as often as by the laid lavra
(hill be directed
6. Every fraemu of the roll an of twenty,
•s. having resided in this State For ihe fpaco
whole year next before the day ol election tor
eprefe,
pub
g ihat
inse, mall enjoy the right of u eleltor i
ilwa/s. ibai foot of freeholder* of the age of twenty.
we yrais Ihall be cautled to vote although they tianj
lot paid tajtes.
Sia j. The Hoife el Reprefenrativea of ife*
•'reemen of this Common- WealtA (hall conurt ofper-
oni moft noted for wifdom and virtue. 10 be chofeai
<; the Freemen of every city and county of this Com*
no>- Wealth refpeclively. And no perfon fhall bo
JeclerJ unlefs he has rrfided in the city or county for
which he (hall be chnfen. two yrars Immediately be-
he raid clc«ion ; nor (hall any member while h«
r.ucs fuch, ho'/d «by c'Jkcc omce except in tha)
•J 8. Noperfon (hall be capable- of being elrlk.
d a member to lervein :M Houle of Reprefei-iaiivct
SiH. 9.- The oifmberiof the Houfe ofReprefen-
nves dial] be cholcn antuaUy by lulioi by the free.
cc e-.'tha Common- V.'calih, on ihe (.cot- Twalija/
140 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Of the group of writers brought to the front at this time, partly by the
force of events and partly by their own genius, Samuel Adams was the
master spirit. From his youth he was deeply interested in public affairs.
He read with avidity all attainable books on politics and government, and
early made himself familiar with Roman law and political history. He
formed a club in 1748 for the purpose of writing and debate on the great
interests of the country. Inspired by his example the members gave to
these discussions the enthusiasm of youthful ambition, and were stimulated
by them to the attainment of broader views and the pursuit of profounder
studies. Every invasion of chartered rights, committed or threatened,
found Adams and his companions at their posts. The habit of enlisting
young men of talent and spirit in the support of principles dear to him
continued during his active life. " To my certain knowledge," said John
Adams,1 " from 1758 to 1775 he made it his constant rule to watch the rise
of every brilliant genius ; to seek his acquaintance, to court his friendship,
to cultivate his natural feelings in favor of his native country, to warn him
against the hostile designs of Great Britain, and to fix his affections and
reflections on the side of his native country." Besides his contributions to
the newspapers, already spoken of, the vigorous pen of Samuel Adams was
always at the public service. He drafted the instructions to the Boston rep-
resentatives for 1764 and 1765, containing the first public challenge of the
right of Parliament to tax the Colonies without their consent, and the first
public suggestion of the union of the Colonies for the redress of grievances.
In his representative capacity he suggested or prepared many of the state
papers of that period, and made many public addresses. With the single
exception of a reply to Thomas Paine, in defence of Christianity, his writings
were called forth in the regular course of public service, and were addressed
to the pressing political exigencies of the time. The generation following
named him "The Father of the Revolution." His blameless life, his unfail-
ing intelligence, his persuasive address, his enthusiasm, always controlled
by reason and a religious sense of responsibility, combined to make him a
born leader of men.2
The impetuous genius of James Otis supplied what was wanting in
Adams's well poised temperament. He was an accomplished scholar, a
charming speaker, and richly endowed with dashing and brilliant qualities.
His first published work (1760) was a treatise on The Rudiments of Latin
Prosody, with a dissertation on the principles of harmony in composition.
He prepared a similar work on Greek prosody, which was never published.
The following year, 1761, he was called to take the leading part in the
great trial of the Writs of Assistance.3 Here his remarkable gifts had a fair
and adequate field for their exercise. The trial involved not only great
pecuniary interests, but the political and civil rights of a continent, and
1 John Adams's Correspondence, in Works, Bay. [See portrait and references in chapter i.
x. 364. of the present volume. — ED.]
2 Wells, Life and Public Services of Samuel * [See Mr. Porter's chapter in the present
Adams; Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts volume. — ED.]
THE LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 141
gave ample opportunity for the display of his varied learning, masterly
reasoning, and captivating eloquence. From this time forward he knew
neither rest nor peace. In 1762, after a sharp controversy with Governor
Bernard on a question of his right to authorize expenditures without the
knowledge of the House of Representatives, in which Otis was sustained
by the House, he published a spirited vindication of its action, which
still further stimulated the spirit of resistance to executive power.1 This
fugitive pamphlet contained the fundamental argument on which constitu-
tional liberty rests, and presented in clear array the whole armory of rea-
soning with which the statesmen of the Revolution fought their later battles.
This was followed two years later by The Rights of the Colonies Asserted
and Vindicated, written with ability and spirit, but making apparent con-
cessions to the authority of Parliament, which excited great distrust and
caused a loss of confidence in the steadiness of his judgment which was
never fully recovered. His last work appeared in 1765^ an eminently pa-
triotic and useful contribution to the discussion ; but presenting views con-
cerning a consolidated empire and parliamentary representation of the
colonies, not shared by many persons on either side of the contest. In
his profession Mr. Otis was pre-eminent, and until his reason failed was
distinguished among many accomplished and able men.3
The fruitful pen of John Adams, like that of his illustrious kinsman,
was given to the same absorbing cause. While reading law in Worcester
he had access to most of the standard books with which educated men were
expected to be familiar. Frequent references to them in his letters and diary
indicate much proficiency in both the ancient and recent classics. The
argument of James Otis against the Writs of Assistance, to which he was a
listener, was a fresh revelation to his wonderfully receptive and fertile mind.4
Thenceforward, till the crisis culminated in 1776, he was engaged, with
occasional interruptions, in writing for the newspapers, in preparing in-
structions for representatives, in addressing public meetings or represent-
ative bodies, — wherever, indeed, the cause of the colonies needed an able,
learned, and fearless defender. In 1765 he was one of a sodality, consisting
of two young lawyers besides himself, formed under the patronage of Mr.
1 The title was, A Vindication of the Conduct 3 Tudor, Life of James Otis, ; Life and Works
of the H. of Rep. of the Province of the Mass. Bay, of John Adams ; Hutchinson, History of Massa-
printed by Edes & Gill, 1762. J. Adams, writing chusetts Bay. Mercy Warren, History of the
of it many years after, said : " Look over the American Rmohition ; Monthly Anthology, v.
Declaration of Rights and Wrongs, issued by [See a portrait and references in chapter i.
Congress in 1774; look into the Declaration of — ED.J
Independence, in 1776; look into the writings 4 " From early life the bent of his mind was
of Dr. Price and Dr. Priestley ; look into all the toward politics, a propensity which the state of
French constitutions of government ; and, to cap the times, if it did not create, doubtless very
the climax, look into Thomas Paine's Common much strengthened. Public subjects must have
Sense, Crisis, and Rights of Man, — what can you occupied the thoughts and filled up the conver-
find that is not to be found in solid substance in sation in the circles in which he then moved ;
this vindication of the House of Representatives?" and the interesting questions at that time arising
2 Considerations on behalf of the Colonists, in could not but seize on a mind like his, ardent,
a Letter to a Noble Lord. London : printed for sanguine, and patriotic." — Webster, Oration on
]. Almon, 1765. Adams and Jejfersoti, Boston, Aug. 2, 1826.
142 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Gridley, then advanced in years, for the purpose of studying the leading
writers on oratory and civil law. His first published work, a treatise on the
canon and feudal law, was the result of their discussions in 1765, and was
printed after the mob of that year. In the Gazette he wrote under many
signatures on all the leading questions ; and though his attachment to his
profession made him resolve again and again to forswear politics, he re-
turned to the public arena as often as an excuse was offered. From this
time Mr. Adams was fully embarked in public life, and his work and ser-
vice belong to the general history of the country. His writings of the pe-
riod preceding and during the Revolution were very carefully preserved,
and have been published, with his own later commentaries upon the events
which inspired them.1
The appearance of British soldiers in Boston, in 1768, was the signal for
a fresh appeal to the patriotism of the inhabitants, the boldness and bril-
liancy of which startled friends and foes. Josjah Quincy, Jr., then just ad-
mitted to the bar, published in the Gazette of that year the remarkable series
of essays bearing the signature of " Hyperion," which at once inspired
admiration for his genius and the affectionate interest of all friends of
liberty. His defence of the soldiers of the Boston massacre, against the
current of popular feeling which he had himself been active in creating,
gave further proof of his personal courage and his deep sense of justice.
His contributions to the newspapers, and his correspondence with leading
statesmen, continued after he was smitten with the signs of fatal illness ; and
his persuasive and eloquent voice was often heard in public gatherings. His
chief work, Observations on the Boston Port Bill, with reflections on civil
society and standing armies, published in 1774, increased his reputation and
influence. But the great promise of his youth and early manhood was not
to be realized. He fell on the threshold of the conflict, leaving a pure and
noble memory.2
Joseph Warren, like most of his eminent contemporaries, also cultivated
literature as a patriotic diversion. With every social grace and virtue he
united uncommon literary gifts and a passionate love of country. Indeed,
they were never long separated. His letters were luminous and prophetic,
and his newspaper writings, from the time of the Stamp Act to the close of
his life, were noted for purity and force of style, excellent judgment, and a
manly spirit. His oration on the anniversary of the Massacre, in 1772, gave
fresh lustre to his reputation. He was then in his thirty-first year, in active
practice of his profession, and the trusted friend and confidant of all the
Whig statesmen. His style was fervent and rhetorical, somewhat over-
1 C. F. Adams, Life and Works of John Algernon Sydney's works, in a large quarto;
Adams. [A portrait of John Adams in his old John Locke's works, in three volumes, folio ;
age is given in Mr. Lodge's chapter in the pres- Lord Bacon's works, in four volumes, folio ;
ent volume. — ED.] Gordon's Tacitus, in four volumes; Cato's Let-
2 J. Quincy, Life of Josiah Quinty, Jr. In his ters, by Gordon ; and Trenchard's and Mrs. Ma-
will was the following provision : " I give to my caulay's History of England. May the Spirit of
son Josiah [afterward President Quincy], when Liberty rest upon him ! " [See his portrait and
he shall have arrived at the age of fifteen years, references in chapter i. — ED.]
THE LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION.
143
weighted with metaphor and imagery, but frank and sincere in thought,
logical and direct in statement,, and impressive in delivery. The oration of
J cJ%
4 s *- • S*
rtie~; <%*- *r*raSt^+*>y ^tia+m rtL-^&pm^te^.tsZiiAs <x6.**~inS
' .7?
%*-t*. X^<^MX a- «£*-«^ , a- £&»*+A
&n*tA*t4l''/usrr>m.
T
•L/'kftASi, *J
..•
OsnJ
*
* /
WARREN'S 1775 MANUSCRIPT.1
1775 was given under circumstances much more singular and distressing.
The town was occupied by hostile troops. Warning had been given that
1 [The manuscript of this second oration of
Warren has descended to Dr. John C. Warren,
the second of that name, and by his kind per-
mission the first page of it is here reproduced,
The script is of uncommon legibility, contained
in a quarto book with black or dark covers, and
occupies twenty-eight pages, with one paragraph
at least inserted on an attached bit of paper,
The oration was printed in the Boston Gazette,
March 17, 1775, and in the same year in a pam-
phlet by Edes & Gill, and probably the same
year in New York. (Frothingham's Warren,
428-436.) Dr. Warren also possesses, beside the
likeness mentioned in another note, a contem-
porary colored mezzotint portrait, following evi-
dently the likeness in question ; and in his dining-
room, above the portrait, hang two swords
crossed, — one a slender blade sheathed in black,
which is believed to have been the one worn at
Bunker Hill ; the other was worn for many years
by his grandfather as an officer of the Cadets. Dr.
Warren possesses various papers of the General
and some of his books, which have a printed
book-plate: "Joseph Warren. The wicked bor-
roweth and returneth not." See the portrait
and references in chapter i. — ED.]
144 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
the citizens would commemorate the day at their peril. Warren, with char-
acteristic spirit, sought the post of danger. To avoid the crowd, he reached
the pulpit through a window in the rear of it. On the steps of the pulpit
and in the pews before him were the military representatives of an empire
whose power he met with audacious defiance. The chivalry of his nature
had full play in this remarkable presence. Poetry and history have at-
tempted to describe the scene ; but no description can give adequate ex-
pression to its impressiveness and significance.
In the intervals of these periods of special exaltation, Warren wrote
stirring verses for the newspapers, of which "A Song for Liberty," be-
ginning—
"That seat of science, Athens, and earth's proud mistress, Rome, —
Where now are all their glories ? We scarce can find their tomb,"
is perhaps the best known.1
With these Patriots, who are most eminent in the literary annals of the
Revolution, were many others whose names are not wholly foreign to them.
James Bowdoin published little aside from his contributions to the state
papers ; but he cultivated letters during his whole life, and his reputation
for science and learning extended over both continents.2 John Hancock,
eloquent, graceful, and accomplished, and " formed by nature to act a bril-
liant part in the affairs of the world," contributed much to the correspond-
ence of the time, and gave an oration in 1774, on the anniversary of the
Massacre, in which he rose to the occasion with boldness and dignity.3
Robert Treat Paine, the learned and eminent judge, had refined literary
tastes, and cultivated the society of learned
men. He was wise in theology as well as in
law, but the tradition of his great acquirements
is all that is left concerning them.4 Oxenbridge
Thacher, the associate of Otis in the trial of the Writs of Assistance, an
ingenious lawyer, a cultivated scholar, and of a most amiable character,
died early in the strife, just as his fine spirit and rich gifts were beginning
to be appreciated. William Tudor, who attained eminence at the bar,
served with distinction in the army, and
delivered the spirited Massacre oration
of I779.6 Thomas Gushing was a dili-
gent promoter of learning and litera- ^^_
ture; but his position, as Speaker of the c
1 Massachusetts Spy, May 26, 1774. Reprint- Funeral Sermon; Loring's Hundred Boston
ed in Frothingham's Life and Times of Joseph Orators.
Warren, p. 405. Duyckinck, Cyclopedia of 4 \Vashburn, Judicial History of Massachu-
American Literature, i. 466, gives a different setts; Tudor, Life of James Otis. [See the chap-
version, ters by Mr. Porter and Mr. Lodge in the present
2 Judge Lowell, quoted by R. C. Winthrop, volume, and by Mr. Quincy in Vol. IV. — ED.]
Orations and Addresses, i. 131. [See Mr. Lodge's 5 [There is a portrait of Colonel Tudor in
chapter. — ED.] Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., i. 282, and an extended
8 Sparks's Biographies; Lives of the Signers memoir of him by his son in 2 Mass. Hist. Coll.
of the Declaration of Independence; Thacher's viii. 285.— ED.]
THE LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 145
House for many years, in which he was required to sign all public docu-
ments, gave his name a celebrity quite out of proportion to his real influence,
which, indeed, was not slight.1 Benjamin Church, the accomplished physi-
cian, poet, scholar, and a writer of undoubted genius, gave his talents to
the Whig cause, and was a trusted associate of the Whig leaders until the
war began, — for a considerable time,
indeed, after he had secretly resolved
to betray them.2 His writings were
much celebrated. His poems, some- /7 \^^
times satirical, sometimes serious and
pathetic, were always correct and elegant. His orations were polished,
scholarly, and eloquent.3 His prose writings, scattered through the publi-
cations of the time, were often witty and philosophical, but never especially
profound.
Foremost among the writers on the royalist side was Thomas Hutch-
inson. Many of his state papers were written with singular moderation and
dignity.4 The royal prerogative had no more able and learned defender
than it found in this favored son of the province. Had he fallen upon more
peaceful times, he would easily have attained the fame to which his varied
accomplishments and his blameless character entitled him ; but his over-
estimate of power, his want of sympathy with popular rights, and his great
ambition led him to the losing side of the controversy which had to be
decided in his time. The storm of obloquy falling upon all who shared his
faith in the power of the Crown quite overshadowed his undoubted claims
to respect as a citizen, a magistrate, and an historian. In various public
capacities he had rendered useful service to the Province. He was a capa-
ble and upright judge. His charges to the jury were models of clear and
methodical statement, and his decisions were founded upon principles of jus-
tice and reason. His historical labors do not display original or profound
thought, and have few graces of style ; but he was conscientiously pains-
taking and thorough in his investigations, and to the relation of events in-
volving strong partisan feeling he brought a spirit of candor which disarms
criticism. The impartiality of his narrative, even in relating incidents of
which he was himself a great part, and by whose interpretations he must
stand or fall, is one of the striking features of his History of Massachusetts
1 This circumstance led Dr. Johnson, in his 8 Thacher's Medical Biography ; Loring's
pamphlet on Taxation no Tyranny, to say : " One Hundred Boston Orators.
object of the Americans is said to be to adorn * The more important of these papers are
the brows of Mr. Gushing with a diadem." preserved in the volume of Massachusetts State
[Thomas Gushing was Lieut.-Governor, under the Papers, compiled by Alden Bradford, and printed
new constitution of 1780, till his death in 1788. in Boston in 1818. The volume includes the
He was the last to add to his pay as one of the speeches of the Governors of Massachusetts from
council the salary of that sinecure office, the 1765 to 1775, and the answers to them by the
captaincy of the Castle. See his likeness, etc., House of Representatives, with the resolutions
in Mr. Porter's chapter. — ED.] and addresses for that period, and other public
2 Hutchinson, Letters to Bernard, January, papers.
1772.
VOL. III. — 19.
146 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Bay. His greed of office, his exaggerated ambition, his persistent misjudg-
ment of the nature of the forces contending for the mastery of this conti-
nent, were followed by quick and bitter retribution ; but no record o'f his
time is complete which fails to recognize him as one of the very few Ameri-
cans who, outside of the absorbing interests of the time, made permanent
and useful contributions to the history of the country.1
Jonathan Sewall, Attorney-General of Massachusetts, was reputed to be
one of the best writers of his time in New England. The Royalist journals
were indebted to him for many of the ingenious essays in defence of the
Crown and Parliament, which enabled them to maintain their ground against
great odds from 1768 to 1775. John Adams, his early friend and com-
panion, credits him with a lively wit, a pleasing humor, a brilliant imagina-
tion, great subtilty of reasoning, and an insinuating eloquence. Andrew
Oliver,2 Lieut.-Governor, was a temperate and judicious writer in support of
the prerogative, and against the extreme pretensions of the Patriots. His
son, Andrew Oliver, Jr., more of a scholar than a politician, found time, in
the midst of political distractions, to publish treatises on comets, storms, and
other natural phenomena; and he was a member of many learned societies.
The names of two women, from very different walks in life, are entitled
to a place in the literary annals of this time. " It was fashionable to ridi-
cule female learning," Mrs. Adams wrote in one of her letters. " In the best
families it went no further than writing and arithmetic ; in some few and
rare instances, music and dancing." 3 But Mercy Warren was no slave to
the social code. Urged by her own intrepid spirit, and stimulated by the
example of her brother, James Otis, and her husband, James Warren of Ply-
mouth, she became no indifferent part of the Revolution. Her house was
the resort of all its great leaders, and she was a welcome companion in their
most secret counsels. Her first publications were TJie Adulator, issued in
Boston in 1773, and The Group in 1775, — both political dramas satirizing the
prominent Royalists. These were followed by poems, less elaborate and of
a more serious cast ; not remarkable as poetry, but charged with patriotic
feeling and closely reflecting the spirit of the times. The Squabble of tJie
Sea Nymphs, celebrating the tea adventure; A Political Reverie, written
while the Colony was hesitating between its ancient loyalty and its passion
for freedom ; To the Hon. John Winthrop, Esq., who had requested her to
give him a poetical list of the articles which a lady would require under the
head of " real necessaries of life," while trade with Great Britain was sus-
pended ; and later than any of these, The Sack of Rome, and The Ladies
of Castile, — all won great praise in their day and were widely read.4 Mrs.
Warren kept at the same time a careful record of public events, and main-
tained an active correspondence with many Whig statesmen, which at a
1 [See his likeness and an estimate of him 8 Familiar Letters of John Adams and his
in Dr. Ellis's chapter in Vol. II. p. 68; also Mr. Wife, x. xi.
Porter's chapter in the present volume. — ED.) * Poems, Dramatic and Miscellaneous. By
2 [See his likeness and references in Mr. Mrs. M. Warren. Boston : Thomas & Andrews,
Porter's chapter. — ED.] 1 790.
THE LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTION. 147
later period furnished the principal materials for her history of the Revo-
lution.1
Phillis Wheatley, a waif brought to these shores in a slave-ship from
the coast of Africa, wrote youthful verses, which at first attracted attention
rather on account of the novelty of their origin than for any special merit of
iS
their own. Her earlier poems were first published in England, whither she
had been taken in 1773 in ill health, at the age of eighteen years. These
poems, gratefully inscribed to the Countess of Huntingdon, her chief friend
and benefactor, and subsequently republished in this country, are of vari-
ous degrees of merit, — the best of them being simple, graceful, and not
without traces of genuine poetic and religious feeling. Her memorial verses
on the death of Dr. Sewall, of George Whitefield, and of Governor Hutch-
inson's daughter, and others, were well calculated to win the sympathetic
interest of many persons ; while her more ambitious poems, " Goliath of
Gath," " Niobe Mourning for her Children," and her contemplative and re-
ligious poems show great purity of sentiment and unusual gifts of poetic
expression. Poverty, neglect, and a tragic death following a melancholy
marriage quenched the fire just as it was beginning to light her way to
hope and fame.2
But the crowning achievement of this period, — the magnum 0/«J, to
which the ripest thought, the highest aspiration, and the best literary skill
of that generation contributed, — were the Massachusetts Constitution and
Declaration of Rights of 1780. No worthier monument exists to the intel-
lectual elevation, as well as to the wisdom, sagacity, and breadth of view
of the statesmen who modelled and the people who accepted it. John and
Samuel Adams, Bowdoin, Hancock, Lowell, Parsons, Cabot, Sullivan, Cush-
ing, and many more had a part in the work ; but John Adams was the
1 Mrs. Ellet, Women of the Revolution; Duyc- 1834 publication was written by Miss M. M.
kinck, Cyclopedia of American Literature ; Life Odell, of Jamaica Plain. The book passed to a
and Works of John Adams. [See Mr. Charles second edition in 1835, and to a third in 1838,
A. Cummings's chapter in the present volume, the latter containing Phillis's letter to Washing-
and Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney's chapter in Vol. ton, from Sparks, iii. 297. The original edition
IV. — ED.] of her " Poems on various subjects " was pub-
2 Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley, a lished in London in 1773, with an engraved por-
Native African and a Slave. Boston: George trait, and it was sold in Boston by Feb. 8, 1774.
W. Light, 1834; Allibone, Dictionary of Authors; Other editions were published at Albany in
Duyckinck, Cyclopedia of American Literature; 1793; at Philadelphia, 1801, as an appendix to
Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1863, 1864, pp. 166, 167 The Negro equalled by few Europeans; at Wal-
[where will be found various letters by her, pole, N. H., 1802 ; at Hartford, 1804 ; and " New
edited by Charles Deane, with an account of England," 1816. See Mrs. Cheney's chapter in
her by N. B. Shurtleff. The memoir of the Vol. IV. — ED.]
148 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
chief architect. The distinguishing feature of this instrument, especially
worthy of commemoration here, is the chapter relating to the University of
Cambridge, the encouragement of literature, etc., which remains to this day
a part of the supreme law of Massachusetts, — at once a model of literary
expression and the high-water mark of American statesmanship.1
This rapid sketch omits many names and many books entitled to a place
in any complete review of the literature of the Revolutionary period. The
teeming intellectual fertility of the town itself was stimulated by Thomas
Hollis, Nicholas Boylston, Thomas Hancock, and a score of enterprising
booksellers who brought or sent into the colony all the standard books on
law, politics, and history, together with the best of the belles-lettres then
read by the English-speaking world. The printers, moreover, on both sides
of the controversy, responded to the spreading interest in public affairs, and
poured out pamphlets and broad-sides, which found their way to every man's
door. Stately and elaborate essays alternated with the light and ephemeral
humors of the passing hour, presenting in every variety of form, and with
every shade of feeling, the one leading thought of American intellectual
or literary life. On the Loyalist side, under the greatest possible discour-
agements, there were displayed ability, sincerity, devotion, and many noble
virtues which will always command human sympathy. On the Patriot side,
while the people were equally disinterested and courageous, the love and
the hope of freedom took more passionate and complete possession of them.
All social and public interests came under the sway of that impulse ; all
talents were quickened and uplifted by that conviction. The long travail
of a people contending against powerful injustice ; the assurance that suc-
cess would ultimately vindicate and reward their faith ; passing moods of
depressing doubt and triumphant confidence, alternating with dreams of
grandeur and happiness under new institutions, over which kingly power
would have no control and lingering tyrannies would cast no shadow, —
these were the accompaniments of a political change wrought in a single
generation, which in purity of motive, exaltation of purpose, and splendor
of results is without parallel in the annals of men.
1 " In all the formulas of rights adopted by lessons of history over the future of a new Com-
the several States there is a general resemblance momvealth, for its repeated inculcation of the
of substance and phraseology. . . . The Massa- duties of religion and education as the primary
chusetts Declaration is more extended, and agencies of civilized States, and for its own
enunciates more in detail the investiture of the simple and solid literature. With the exception
liberties of the citizen subject; and though I of the third article it is the work of Mr. Adams,
must unavoidably be suspected of bias, I am free though in the convention it took on considerable
to express the opinion that, as a whole, it is su- changes in the grouping and phraseology."
perior to any other similar form in existence Alexander H. Bullock, The Centennial of the
for its comprehensive projecting of the eclectic Massachusetts Constitution, pp. 20, 21.
CHAPTER IV.
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
BY HORACE E. SCUDDER.1
THE struggle for personal freedom which occupied the mind of Eng-
land and her colonies in the eventful last quarter of the eighteenth
century was sharply accented in Boston, and the crisis which came with the
Boston Port Bill was of a nature to change materially and rapidly the con-
ditions of life in the capital of New England. The succession of hostile acts
on the one side, and of retaliatory reprisals on the other, practically sealed
Boston Harbor before the British navy made its fence of ships across the
entrance, and the sudden check upon free commerce fell with force upon
the great centre of the town's activity. At the wharves were idle vessels, in
the streets were idle sailors and mechanics, and the saw and hammer which
had made the ship-yards noisy were thrown aside. The withdrawal of la-
bor was the concentration of interest upon politics, for public affairs were
now more than ever closely involved with private affairs. The introduction
of troops into the town increased the disorder, and it would seem as if
nothing was going on but town-meetings and street rows. The glance which
we get at Boston in the few years immediately preceding the outbreak of
the war — through the columns of the journals, the records of the General
Court and of the town — discloses a half-turbulent, excited, angry, but res-
olute town, where there was a constant exhibition in miniature of the
conflict which was so imminent.
The resolute, not to say obstinate, temper of the town found abundant
opportunity for expression, and the hand seemed always on the hilt. In
1773 the Governor and Council were to have their customary annual elec-
tion dinner; and the town, in its meeting, instructed the selectmen to grant
the use of Faneuil Hall only on condition that neither the commissioners of
the customs and their attendants, nor the officers of the army and navy
stationed at Boston for the purpose of enforcing unconstitutional acts of
1 [Mr. Scudder published in 1876, in Men and A Short History of the English Colonies in Amer-
Manners in America One Hundred Years Ago, a tea, 1881, gives a chapter (p. 406) to depicting
picture of life in the colonies, a third of the the condition of life in New England just at
book being given to New England ; drawing his the out-break of the war. Another general
material, without change of form, from some of survey will be found in the introduction to
the most helpful of the contemporary accounts. The First Century of the Republic, New York,
The recent book of Mr. He'nry Cabot Lodge, 1876. — ED.]
150 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Parliament by military execution, be invited, — it being utterly against the
inclination of the town that even one person who had rendered himself
inimical to the rights of America should be admitted to the hall upon
such an occasion.1
The famous non-importation agreement of 1770 struck into society; for
those were days when politics and society were so closely identified that
there were two camps, more strictly defined than even by religious differ-
ences afterward. The matrons entered into an agreement to drink no tea
until the revenue acts were repealed. " We do strictly engage," they say,
" that we will totally abstain from the use of that article (sickness excepted)
not only in our respective families, but that we will absolutely refuse it if it
should be offered to us on any occasion whatsoever." A fortnight afterward,
that no loophole might be left, the daughters of the Patriots signed a like
agreement ; and the Patriot papers now began to publish, and to keep stand-
ing in their columns, the names of those shopkeepers who refused to enter
the non-importation league, and they were practically excommunicated by
the town. " It must evidently appear that they have preferred their own little
private advantage to the welfare of America ; ... so those who afford them
their countenance, or give them their custom, must expect to be considered
in the same disagreeable light." 2 . One frequently comes upon advertise-
ments of dealers who offer certain goods with the assurance that these were
all obtained before the non-importation agreement, and so may safely be
sold and bought. Isaac Viburt publishes an indignant card because hand-
bills have been posted charging his wife with buying tea of William Jackson.
It was probably done, he declares, " to raise the resentment of the inhabi-
tants, and to injure me in my business, which wholly depends on the em-
ploy of the merchants and traders of the town, in repairing of vessels, etc.
N. B. — The occasion of Mrs. Viburt's going to Mr. Jackson's shop was, a
number of shoes from Lynn was left there for her, and she called on Satur-
day last and took them away." 3 Such advertisements illustrate well the
village-like character of the town, and the extreme sensitiveness of the
people.
The sewing-circle was a miniature camp, and American ideas and indus-
try were extolled : —
" Last Wednesday forty-five Daughters of Liberty met in the morning at the house
of the Rev. Mr. Moorhead in this town ; and in the afternoon they exceeded fifty.
By the evening of said day they spun two hundred and thirty-two skeins of yarn, —
some very fine. Their labor and materials were all generously given to the worthy
pastor. Nothing appeared in their whole conduct but love, festivity, and application.
. . . Their entertainment was wholly American production except a little wine,
etc. . . . The whole was concluded with many agreeable tunes and Liberty songs,
with great judgment ; fine voices performed and animated on this occasion in all the
several parts by a number of the Sons of Liberty." 4
1 Boston Town Records, May 14, 1773. 8 Boston Gazette, Feb. 19, 1770.
2 Boston Gazette, Jan. i, 1770. 4 Ibid., May 21, 1770.
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 151
There was no mincing of matters. If a man went counter to the popular
sentiment and passion he was denounced by name, and made to feel the
scorn of his neighbors. The rebuke was open and public : —
" Upon a motion made and seconded, voted unanimously, that this town have
the greatest abhorrence of one of its inhabitants, — viz., Samuel Waterhouse, —
who, in defiance of the united sentiment, not only of his fellow-citizens but all his
fellow-countrymen, expressed repeatedly in the votes and records of the Honorable
House of Representatives of this Province, has continued to accommodate troops
at this time so justly obnoxious to a free people and abhorrent to a free constitu-
tion, and thereby basely prostituted a once respectable mansion-house to the use of
a main guard." 1
There is something half petty, half sublime, in the solemn way in which
the town, in measured sentence, proceeds to write down for posterity the
names of those who have shown themselves unworthy townsmen. At a
town-meeting held March 19, 1770, this vote was unanimously passed: —
" The merchants, not only of this metropolis but through the continent, having
nobly preferred the public good to their own private emolument, and with a view to
obtain a redress of the grievance so loudly and justly complained of, having almost
unanimously engaged to suspend their importations from Great Britain, — a measure
approved by all orders as legal, peaceable, and most likely of all others to effect the
salutary design in view, and which will be regarded by posterity with veneration, for
the disinterested and truly public spirit appearing in it, — the town cannot but express
their astonishment and indignation that any of its citizens should be so lost to the
feelings of patriotism and the common interest, and so thoroughly and infamously self-
ish as to obstruct this very measure by continuing their importation ; be it therefore
solemnly voted, that the names of these persons — few, indeed, to the honor of the
town [and then follow a dozen names, one only of which, that of John Mein, the
bookseller, has any other notoriety] — be entered on the records of this town, that
posterity may know who those persons were that preferred their little private ad-
vantage to the common interest of all the Colonies in a point of the greatest
importance ; who not only deserted, but opposed their country in a struggle for the
rights of the Constitution that must ever do it honor ; and who, with a design to en-
rich themselves, basely took advantage of the generous self-denial of their fellow-
citizens for the common good."
The intimation in the last clause is of a not unnatural indignation felt and
expressed by those traders who signed the agreement, and saw business fall-
ing into the hands of less zealous merchants.
Meanwhile, though foreign trade was paralyzed and the community was
restless and often disorderly, the very excitement of life was doubtless a
stimulus to activity in many directions. John Hancock gave the town a
fire-engine, and the town, accepting it with pleasure, directed with an honest
simplicity that the engine " be placed, under proper cover, at or near Han-
cock's Wharf; and in case of fires the estate of the donor shall have the
1 Boston Town Records, March 6, 1770.
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
A
7 V* '<&<.<*_ -^tyC*^^-—)
«~<7 S* ^ JtifyWL
X
BOSTON MERCHANTS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
preference of its service." J A number of meetings were held to take
measures for lighting the town, and the result was a private subscription
and the purchase of between three and four hundred lamps.2 Two respon-
1 Boston Town Records, May 22, 1772. [Sev-
eral papers relating to the engines and engine-
men of this time are among the old papers in
the Charity Building. — ED.]
2 [Thomas NewelFs diary notes: " March 2,
1774. — A number of lamps in town were lighted
this evening for the first time." (Mass. Hist. Soc.
Proc., October, 1877, p. 349.) He had already
(January 8) recorded : " Began to make the tops
of the glass lamps for this town." The lamps
had come from England, and were on board one
of the tea-ships which was wrecked in Decem-
ber, 1773, on Cape Cod. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc.,
1865, p. 327. — ED.]
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 153
£fiSiy
Y/^Qjj^
. ^
BOSTON MERCHANTS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
154 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
sible persons from each ward were appointed to decide, with the committee,
upon the most fitting places. Gawen Brown, whose name is familiar upon
many hall clocks which are still ticking regularly, set up a great clock on
the Old South, which " goes with such regularity and exactness that for this
fourteen weeks it has not lost by two minutes of time." l In February of
the same year the newspaper takes notice of the finishing of an excellent
spinnet,2 " which, for goodness of workmanship and harmony of sound, is
esteemed by the best judges to be superior to any that has been imported
from Europe." The protective high tariff of non-importation was evidently
at work.
The order of the town was naturally disturbed by the state of affairs ; and
one article in the warrant for a town-meeting in March, 1770, was " to con-
sider of some effectual methods to prevent unlicensed strangers, and other
persons, from entertaining and supplying the youth and servants of the
town with spirituous liquors ; for the breaking up of bad houses, and re-
moval of any disorderly intruders to the places from whence they came ;
and for the further discountenancing of vice and promoting a refor-
mation of manners." A committee was appointed, but reported that
the laws were sufficient, and only needed to be enforced. They ad-
vised, however, the appointment of twelve tithing-men to see to such
enforcement.
The population which remained in Boston, when the town was fairly
beleaguered, consisted of the garrison and its immediate camp-following;
the Crown officers with their households ; a small society of Tories, rich
and well-bred, many of whom had sought refuge in the town ; 3 a consider-
able body of poor people, whose sympathies were chiefly with the Patriots ;
and a few citizens who, belonging to the popular party, remained either to
perform the duties of their offices as ministers or doctors, or to protect,
as far as possible, their own property and that of their connections. It is
probable that among these last would be found those whose interests
were chiefly commercial, and who warily avoided committing themselves
unreservedly to either side in the conflict. Our sources of information re-
garding the common life of the town are derived from letters, journals, and
the like,4 from representatives of these several classes, excepting the very
1 Boston Gazette, April 16, 1770. p. 281, — too cautious to disclose much ; letters to
2 [See an account of the spinnet of this time G. Greene, in Ibid., June, 1873; letter of Samuel
in Harper's Magazine, Iviii. 860. — ED.] Paine, in N. E. Hist, and Cental. Reg., July, 1876 ;
* [Most of these are named in the Editorial British officer's journal, in Atlantic Monthly,
Note on "The Loyalists," following this chap- April, 1877; Memoir and Letters of Captain
ter. — ED.] IV. G. Evelyn, 1879, from which there are some
4 [Such sources are the letters of John An- extracts in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1879, P- 2&9-
drews, in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1865, p. 405; After the action at Bunker Hill, thirty-one Pa-
letters in American Historical Record. December, triots were thrown by General Gage into the jail
1872 ; Newell's Diary, in 4 Mass. Hist. Col., \. ; in Boston. Among them was James Lovell, who
letters in Essex Institute Collections, July, 1876; had delivered one of the Massacre orations. (See
and Mr. W. P. Upham's paper, in Essex Insti- \jon\\%, Hundred BostonOrators, p. 33). The diaries
tute Bulletin, March, i876 ; Andrew Eliot's let- of two of these captives have been preserved :
ters, in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., September, 1878, that of Peter Edes was printed in Bangor in
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
'55
humble ; and from the scanty chronicles preserved in the meagre Boston
News-Letter, the only paper published in town during the siege, which was,
of course, in the Tory interest. The life of which we catch glimpses was
one of petty contrasts and of much common discomfort and misery. In the
matter of shelter, the gentlemen and ladies of the Royal cause took posses-
sion of houses which had been deserted by prominent citizens, or were
welcomed by those who remained with satisfaction in their own houses.
Hancock's house * was occupied by General Clinton ; Burgoyne was in the
Bowdoin mansion ; 2 and Lord Percy in the Gardiner Greene house ; 3 Gage
and his successor, Howe,4 took possession, in turn, of the Province House.
The officers5 found lodgings in the aristocratic boarding-houses, which long
after this period were the resort of persons who wished a more dignified and
comfortable resting-place than the taverns afforded. The troops were dis-
posed in barracks in different parts of the town;6 and the general aspect of
the place was altered by the exigencies of the situation. A number of build-
ings were taken down near the old Hay-Market, to permit unobstructed pas-
sage across the southern part of the peninsula, where the strongest works
1837 ; that of John Leach is in the JV. E. Hist,
and Geneal. Reg., July, 1865. The manuscripts
of both are owned by Mr. H. H. Edes. His let-
ter relating to the two journals is printed in the
Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., December, 1871, p. 176.
See the Evacuation Memorial, p. 157. — ED.]
1 [There is in the collection of Mellen Cham-
berlain, Librarian of the Public Library, a paper
signed by William Bant, " attorney to Mr. Han-
cock," dated Boston, Feb. 26, 1777, which shows
the damage done to Hancock's estate by the
British troops during their occupancy, "so far
as I have been able to collect it," amounting to
,£4,732 2s. &%d., of which, ,£345 lew. 6^</. was
damage to the mansion-house and its fences,
"since April 19, 1776, taken to Decr 1776," in-
cluding wines, furniture, "6 muskets given in to
Gen1 Gage by his arbitrary order, @ 80 / ," " lin-
ing of the chariot torn out and carried away, £9,"
"rent of the House one year, ^133. 6s. &d."
Mention is also made of a " house back of the
Mansion House, pull'd down and destroyed,
.£300 ; " also " a house in Ann Street pull'd down
and destroyed, ,£500." — ED.]
2 [Dr. Ellis's paper on " Burgoyne in Boston,"
in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., March, 1876, p. 233,
gives a synopsis of so much of Fonblanque's
Life of Burgoyne as relates to his stay here.
— ED.]
8 [Percy at one time occupied a fine mansion,
with garden, which stood on the northerly corner
of Winter and Tremont streets, and which be-
longed to Mr. John Williams, and had been the
town residence of Governor Bernard. After the
war it was the home of Samuel Breck (whose
Reminiscences we have had, as edited by Mr.
Scudder), who sold the estate to John Andrews,
whose letters, however, at the time now under
observation, were written from a house in School
Street, where he then lived. Percy is sometimes
said at different times to have occupied also the
Hancock House, Mrs. Sheaffe's at the corner of
Columbia and Essex streets, and perhaps others;
but Mr. C. W. Tuttle (Daily Advertiser, May I,
1880) says he has seen no evidence, originating in
that period, of his having lived in any house but
that of Mr. Williams. — ED.]
4 [The quarters of General Howe were, be-
fore Gage left, in a house at the corner of Oliver
and Milk streets. Drake's Landmarks, 1872, p.
271. — ED.]
5 [Brigadier Pigot, of the Forty-third, "im-
proved a house just above Liberty Tree ; " but
after the fight at Charlestown, his command of
the troops on Bunker Hill required his resi-
dence on that side of the river. N. E. Hist, and
Geneal. Reg., July, 1876. Adjutant Waller's
Orderly-Book has the following : —
"i6Aug., 1775. Whereas some evil-minded
person did, on monday last, in the middle of the
day, cut off the tail of a little black cow belong-
ing to B. Gen1 Pigot, whoever will give infor-
mation against the person guilty of so much
cruelty shall receive a guinea reward." — Eu.]
e [Drake, Landmarks, p. 313, says that a bat-
talion of troops was quartered in Sheriff Green-
leaf's gardens, at the corner of Tremont and West
streets. John Adams's house, in Queen Street
(Court Street), was " occupied by one of the doc-
tors of a regiment." It was found, after the
evacuation, "very dirty, but no other damage
done to it ; but the few things which were left
in it, all gone." Familiar Letters, pp. 149, 154.
— ED.]
156 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
were built for defence against possible attack.1 The Old South was used
as a riding-school for the light dragoons, — not without a contemptuous ref-
erence to the prominence of the building as a gathering-place for the sedi-
tious inhabitants, — and other meeting-houses were used for barracks. The
Old North Meeting-house was pulled down for fuel, and over a hundred
houses were destroyed for the same purpose ; chiefly, probably, the old,
small, and decaying wooden buildings.2 There was, of course, no sentiment
which would preserve the house of Governor Winthrop for a later destruc-
tion by indifferent citizens. The order for destruction was not given until
necessity compelled it. Supplies of fuel had been ordered but did not
arrive, and the winter set in with uncommon severity.
The customary avenues by which fuel, food, clothing, and other neces-
sities entered the town had been closed, with the exception of the water-way
into the harbor, and privateersmen were hovering about the coast harassing
the transports that entered there. The town, before the siege, had taken
care of itself by the ordinary dealings with the country, and by its com-
merce; but now it was the work of a military organization to supply the
most common necessities of a large and helpless population. Suddenly to
feed a town and garrison numbering together twenty thousand souls, and to
be dependent chiefly upon slow-sailing vessels, coming from a distance in
the inclemency of weather, was a task beyond the capacity of any common
quartermaster's department ; and rich and poor found themselves in a sad
quandary. The testimony on this point is varied and explicit, for men be-
come very talkative about their dinner when they have either had none or
fear there is none to come ; and the journals and letters of the siege are
largely occupied with this topic.3 John Andrews, one of the merchants
who remained behind to have an eye on family property, and whose shrewd-
ness and ready wit plainly stood him in good stead with both parties, makes
a survey of the situation near the end of the siege : —
" I am well in health, thank God ! and have been so the whole of the time, but
have lived at the rate of six or seven hundred sterling a year; for I was determined
to eat fresh provisions while it was to be got, let it cost what it would ; that since
1 [These works are best shown in Page's in Frank Moore's Diary of the American Revolu-
map, given in another chapter. This southern (ton, p. 97; also as a wood-cut, in Lossing's Field-
approach to the town is shown pictorially in the Book of the Revolution, \. 512. — ED.]
annexed heliotypes of two views of Boston, dat- 2 [The immediate occasion is said to have
ing from this time ; the upper is one of Des been to supply transports with fuel which were
Barres's views, and the Neck lines are shown at about to sail for England with sick. Moore's
the point where a flag flies. Something of the Diary of the Revolution, \. 182. — ED.]
ruggedness of Beacon Hill is indicated in the 3 [" 29 May. Any women, as may be wanted
mount beyond the town. In the lower view, as nurses at the General Hospital, or to do any
which gives Shirley Hall in the middle distance other business for the service of the Garrison,
on the left, Beacon Hill seems to assume an ap- and shall refuse to do it, will immediately be
pearance which it is hard to accept. The view is struck off the provision list." — Waller's Orderly-
much the same as the upper one, but from a point Book, 1775. In August, 1775, John Leach, then
farther back from the shore. It follows a copy confined in Boston jail, enters in his diary : "This
of a large print now in the Boston Athenaeum, afternoon my wife came to ask my advice about
What seems to be the same has been not very signing for buying meat, as none were to have it
accurately engraved in Lossing's Washington, and but friends of Government." — ED.)
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 157
October I have scarce eat three meals of salt meat, but supplied my family with fresh
at the rate of one shilling to one shilling sixpence sterling the pound. What wood
was to be got was obliged to give at the rate of twenty dollars a cord ; and coals,
though Government had a plenty, I could not procure (not being an addresser or
associator1 ), though I offered so high as fifty dollars for a chaldron, and that at a
season when Nabby and John, the only help I had, were under inoculation for the
small-pox ; that, if you'll believe me, Bill, I was necessitated to burn horse-dung.
Many were the instances of the inhabitants being confined to the provost for purchas-
ing fuel of the soldiers, when no other means offered, to keep them from perishing
with cold. Yet such was the inhumanity of our masters, that they were even denied
the privilege of buying the surplusage of the soldiers' rations. Though you may
think we had plenty of cheese and porter, yet we were obliged to give from fifteen
pence to two shillings a pound for all we ate of the former ; and a loaf of bread of the
size we formerly gave three pence for, thought ourselves well off to get for a shilling.
Butter at two shillings. Milk — for months without tasting any. Potatoes, from nine
shillings to ten shillings and sixpence a bushel ; and everything else in the same
strain." 2
The besieging soldiers had a joke that the town bull, aged twenty, was
killed and cut up for the use of the officers ; and in a letter from one of these
to his father in England, it is said: "Why should I complain of hard fate?
General Gage and all his family have for this month past lived upon salt pro-
vision. -Last Saturday, General Putnam, in the true style of military com-
plaisance which abolishes all personal resentment and smooths the horrors
of war when discipline will permit, sent a present to General Gage's lady of
a fine quarter of veal, which was very acceptable, and received the return of
a very polite card of thanks." • At one time during the siege only six head
of cattle were in the hands of Butcher-Master-General Hewes, as entire
stock for troops or inhabitants, and the rejected portions of the slaughtered
animals found purchasers among those who were both rich and dainty. One
of the accounts, dated the middle of December, says : " The distress of
the troops and inhabitants in Boston is great beyond all possible descrip-
tion. Neither vegetables, flour, nor pulse for the inhabitants, and the king's
stores so very short none can be spared from them ; no fuel, and the winter
set in remarkably severe. The troops and inhabitants absolutely and liter-
ally starving for want of provisions and fire. Even salt provision is fifteen
pence sterling per pound."3 John Andrews, writing at one time when he
was a little less cheerful than usual, did not boast of his fare : " Was it not
for a trifle of salt provisions that we have, 't would be impossible for us to
live. Pork and beans one day, and beans and pork another, and fish when
we can catch it." He gives, frankly enough, his reason for braving all these
discomforts : " Am necessitated to submit to such living, or risk the little
1 An " addresser " was one of those, presum- unteers who had offered their services to the
ably Loyalists, who joined in congratulatory commander -in -chief, and were enrolled under
addresses to Gage and Howe on different occa- that name.
sions. An "associator " was one of the military 2 Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., July, 1865.
company of Loyal American Associators, — vol- 3 Frothingham, Siege of Boston, p. 280.
158 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
all I have in the world, which consists in my stock of goods and furniture,
to the amount of between two and three thousand sterling, as it 's said
without scruple that those who leave the town forfeit all the effects they
leave behind. Whether they hold it up as only a means to detain people or
not, I can't say ; but, in regard to slaves, their actions have been consistent
with the doctrines, however absurd. It has so far availed as to influence
many to stay who would otherways have gone."
The higher life of Boston, which had made the town the spokesman for
liberty, was perpetuated now outside of its limits, in Cambridge camp, and
in the councils of the embryo nation ; but there was still a light left burn-
ing within the besieged town, where were also the memorials of its past
vitality. The very endurance of the poor tradesmen who remained, num-
bering among them, doubtless, some of those who at an earlier stage of
the struggle had refused to build barracks for the English troops, and thus
had offered their little sacrifice of wages, the privations of life which stanch
Patriots bore, — these were witnesses to the indestructible spirit of the town ;
and it may be said that the town, whether within or without the lines, was at
any time ready for the doom of destruction if that sacrifice was required.
The monuments of its cherished ideas bore also a dumb testimony to the
conflict which was going on. The houses of the chief citizens, occupied by
prominent officers, were for the most part respected by the occupants ; but
that of Sam Adams, the arch-rebel, was mutilated and disfigured past his
slender means of restoration. The public buildings were devoted to the
uses of the soldiers. The Old South, as we have seen, was turned into a
riding-school, the pulpit, pews, and seats being hacked and carried off. A
beautiful carved pew, with silk furniture, b'elonging to Deacon Hubbard,
was taken away and used for a hog-sty, according to Timothy Newell, upon
the solicitation of General Burgoyne ; and it is difficult not to see in some
of the acts of officers and soldiers a spiteful temper. " Dirt and gravel were
spread over the floors ; the south door was closed ; a bar was fixed, over
which the cavalry leaped their horses at full speed ; the east galleries were
allotted to spectators ; the first gallery was fitted up as a refreshment room.
A stove was put up in the winter, and here were burned for kindling many
of the books and manuscripts of Prince's fine library."1 Timothy Newell's
diary contains an amusing account of the shifts to which the worthy deacon
resorted to evade the requisition made upon him for the use of Brattle
Street Church, then recently built, and the pride of the town. He gives a
sigh of relief as he records the fact that the necessity of taking down the
pillars, and thus endangering the safety of the building, was all that saved
the church from being used as a riding-school. It was used as a barrack.
The West Church was used for barracks, and its steeple pulled down for
firewood.2 The North Church, built of wood, was pulled down for the same
reason. The Federal Street Meeting-house was filled with hay. The
Hollis Street Church was used for barracks. The Liberty Tree was cut
1 Frothingham, Siege of Boston, p. 328. 2 [Shown in the frontispiece of this volume. — ED.]
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
159
down amidst the jibes and taunts of the soldiers and Tories, who had not
forgotten its almost personal symbolism. The most distinguished citizen
who remained was the Rev. Andrew Eliot, who shared the ministerial work
chiefly with Drs. Mather and Byles.1 He was detained much against his
will, but spent his time in service of the poor and sick. The Thursday
Lecture gave way near the end of the siege ; and Dr. Eliot notes in his
diary, —
" November 30 [1775]- Preached T. L. Coetus vere parva. The attendance of
this lecture being exceedingly small, and our work greatly increased in other respects,
Dr. Mather and I, who, since the departure of our other Brethren, had preached it
THE LIBERTY TREE/
alternately, thought proper to lay it down for the present. I preached the last sermon
from those words in Rev. 2, ' Remember how thou hast received,' etc. An affecting
occasion, of laying down a lecture which had subsisted more than 140 years. The
small congregation was much moved at the conclusion."
1 [See Mr. Goddard's chapter in the present
volume. — ED.]
2 [This cut follows another given in Snow's
Boston, p. 266. The tree stood at the southeast
corner of Washington and Essex streets ; and a
representation of it, carved in wood, now adorns
a building erected on its site by the late David
Sears. The tree was felled by a party led by
Job Williams, and it made fourteen cords of
wood. A British soldier was killed at the time,
while trying to remove one of the limbs. A so-
liloquy in verse, published at the "time in the
Massachusetts Gazette, Jan. 2, 1776, gives the Tory
view of the case. It is reprinted in Mass. Hist.
Soc. Proc., March, 1876, p. 270. A pole was fast-
ened in the tree ; and the remnants of the flag
used in 1775 are said to be owned by H. C. Fer-
nald, and have been exhibited in the Old South
Loan Collection. On the stump which remained
a liberty-pole was erected after the war, and this
was replaced by another, July 2, 1826. In 1833
Liberty-Tree Tavern stood upon the spot. Tu-
dor's Otis, p. 221; Drake, Landmarks, p. 397;
Evacuation Memorial, p. 160 ; Sargent, Dealings
with the Dead, Nos. 41 and 42. — ED.]
i6o
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
The public schools were dispersed ; Master Lovell, of the Latin school,
casting in his lot with the Crown, while his son James, an usher in the same
school, was thrown into prison under
suspicion of being a spy, and carried
off in chains by the army with which
his father decamped as a Loyalist. One
solitary school was kept gratuitously
by Mr. Elias Dupee. The only other educational offer seems to have been
that of Daniel McAlpine, who had been for some years established " to in-
struct all lovers of the noble science of defence, commonly called the
back-sword, in that art."
It was dull work for the officers and ladies and gentlemen to stay cooped
up in the two little peninsulas through the dismal winter, their eyes and
ears assailed by the for-
lorn condition of the in-
habitants. But no doubt
there was some bravery
of appearances ; and the
society which was light-
ed and warmed by scarlet coats was driven in upon itself pretty rigorously.1
For half a century and more after this time there lived in Boston two
maiden ladies, daughters of Dr. Mather Byles, who stoutly maintained to the
last their loyalty to the Crown of England. They had been girls during the
siege, and the war passed only to find them unflinching British subjects in
will. They entertained visitors, who still remember them, with talks of the
gallantry shown them by General Howe and Lord Percy during the winter of
1775-76 ; -how they promenaded with these great men on the Common ; and
how Lord Percy serenaded them with the regimental band.2 In the train of
1 [Among other divertisements to relieve the
weary hours of the siege, was their burlesquing
some intercepted letters of John Adams to
James Warren : " A paraphrase upon the second
epistle of John the Roundhead to James the Pro-
locutor of the Rump Parliament." See Works of
John Adams, i. 180 ; Familiar Letters, pp. 85,
101, 116. — ED.]
- [An account of the tribulations of Dr.
Byles, written by his daughter, Catharine Byles
(for which we are indebted to Mr. George Hed-
rick, of Lowell), runs thus : —
"Oct. 13, 1778.
" Upon the first opening of the town, the people, among
whom my father had officiated for forty-three years, had
an irregular meeting, and desired his attendance ; when a
charge of his attachment to government was read, of
which, as he never could obtain a copy, I am unable to
give an exact account. Among others were included
his friendly disposition to the British troops, particularly his
entertaining them at his house, indulging them with his
telescope, &c.; his prayers for the King, and for the preser-
vation of the town during the siege. Some time after this
a few lines were sent him, informing that six weeks be-
fore (without so much as the advice of any Council) he
had been dismissed from his pastoral charge. Thus they
left him without any support, or so much as paying his
arrears, so that from the igth of April, 1775, to this day, he
has received no assistance from them. They then repaired
the church, which had been occupied as a barrack for the
British army, and made choice of a new pastor. In May,
1777, at a town-meeting, he was mentioned as a person in-
imical to America ; a warrant was served and bonds given
for his appearance the zd of June, for a trial, when, as they
expressed it, 'after a candid and impartial examination,'
he was brought in Guilty, confined to his house and land,
and a guard placed to prevent the visits of his friends ; and
(except the removal of the guard, which was in about two
months) in this confinement has he remained ever since;
and had it not been for the generous assistance of his be-
nevolent friends, he must inevitably have suffered.
"Miss [obscured] presents her most respectful compli-
ments to Mrs. [obtcnred], and, knowing her benevolence
of heart, begs leave to commit the foregoing pages to her
care, wishing that the particulars mentioned in this little
account may thro' Mrs. [obscured] hands be conveyed to
her humane connections."
Ill Aftissnc/iHsttts Arc/iircs, " Royalist," i. p.
124, is a warrant from the court, dated June 2,
1777, to deliver Mather Byles to the Board of
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. l6l
these great acts of gallantry must have followed similar displays ; and we
can easily catch sight of British officers parading on the Mall with Tory
ladies. A new regiment arrived from England in December, and the News-
Letter chirped at mention of the excellent band it brought, with promise of
a concert for the diversion of the town. When the new year set in, a series
of subscription balls was announced, to be held at Concert Hall once a fort-
night.1 The last ball at the Province House was the Queen's ball, given,
oddly enough, on the twenty-second of February.2 The festival of St.
John the Evangelist was duly celebrated by a dinner at Freemasons' Hall,
a march to Brattle Street, and an appropriate sermon; but there is no
mention of any public festivity at Christmas.
Faneuil Hall, by a satirical retribution, was turned into a theatre, and
the officers and other amateurs declaimed tragedy where the townsmen had
held meetings of equal dramatic force and more reality of meaning. A
number of officers and ladies formed a Society for Promoting Theatrical
Amusements, a title which seems to give a certain solemnity to the proceed-
ings ; and they did this, the announcement frankly stated, for their own
amusement and the benevolent purpose of contributing to the relief of dis-
tressed soldiers, their widows and children. The performances began at six
o'clock. The entrance fee was not immoderate, — one dollar for the pit,
and a quarter of a dollar for the gallery. The surplus over the expenses
was to be appropriated to the relief of poor soldiers. The play must have
been very popular, for the managers were obliged to announce, after a few
evenings, —
" The managers will have the house strictly surveyed, and give out tickets for the
number it will contain. The most positive orders are given out not to take money at
the door ; and it is hoped gentlemen of the army will not use their influence over the
sergeants who are door-keepers to induce them to disobey that order, as it is meant
entirely to promote the ease and convenience of the public by not crowding the
theatre."
The tragedy of Zara seems to have been the favorite ; and the comedy
of The Busybody, with the farces of The Citizen and The Apprentice, were
also given. The most notable piece was the local farce of The Blockade
of Boston, by General Burgoyne.3 On the evening of January 8 it was to
War for transportation "off the continent." were already engaged," it was said, for "the
There are in the Massachusetts Historical So- most brilliant thing ever seen in America." —
ciety's Library two plans of the estate of Dr. ED.]
Mather Byles, made in 1832, showing how one 2 [John Andrews records " an innovation
corner of the mansion projected into the line never before known, — a Drum or Rout, given
of the present Tremont Street, opposite Nassau by the admiral last Saturday evening, which
(now Common) Street. See Vol. II. p. xxxix, did not break up till 2 or 3 o'ck on Sunday morn-
and Mr. Goddard's chapter in the present vol- ing, their chief amusement being playing cards."
ume. — ED.] Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., July, 1865, p. 323. — ED.]
1 [The News-Letter of Feb. 22, 1776, contained 3 Burgoyne was proud of his literary per-
a notice of a masquerade to be given at Concert formances, of which a full account is given in
Hall, March n, and of "a number of different chapter ix. of De Fonblanque's Political and Mil-
masks to be sold by almost all the milliners and itary Episodes in the latter half of the Eighteenth
mantua-makers in town." " Ten capital cooks Century, derived from the Life and Correspon-
VOL. III. — 21.
l62
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
be given for the first time. The comedy of The Busybody had been acted,
and the curtain was about to be drawn for the farce, when the actors behind
the scenes heard an exaggerated report of a raid made upon Charlestown
by a small party of Americans. One of the actors, dressed for his part (that
of a Yankee sergeant), came forward upon the stage, called silence, and
informed the audience that the alarm guns had been fired, and that a battle
was going on in Charlestown. The audience, taking this for the first scene in
the new farce, applauded obstreperously, being determined to get all the fun
there was to be had out of the piece, when the order was suddenly given in
dead earnest for the officers to return to their posts. The audience at this
was thrown into dire confusion, the officers jumping over the orchestra,
breaking the fiddles on the way ; the actors rushing about to get rid of their
paint and disguises ; the ladies alternately fainting and screaming; and the
play brought to great grief and summary conclusion. Whether it was ever
given again or not does not appear; but the News-Letter, in reporting the
incident, announced that " as soon as those parts in The Boston Blockade,
which are vacant by some gentlemen being ordered to Charlestown, can be
filled up, that farce will be performed, with the tragedy of Tamerlane." 1
There was no demonstration of patriotism within the town. The News-
Letter, a complete file of which during the siege is scarcely known, copies
in its issue for July 13, from one of the outside papers, a notice by William
Cooper the town clerk, calling upon the dispersed freemen of Boston to
meet at Concord, in order to choose a representative to the General Court,
and adds, mockingly : " Some have been wondering of late at the peace-
ableness of this town. It is to be hoped that their surprise will now cease,
when they find that Mr. Cooper and the rest of our town-meeting folks
have adjourned to Concord." 2
dence of the Right Honorable "John Burgoyne ;
but of his jeitx d^esprits at this time only a few
lines of a prologue and epilogue to Zara have
been saved. His farce was probably never
printed, and efforts to recover it have never, so
far as I know, succeeded. After the siege, a
literary revenge was taken by an anonymous
writer in the farce of The Blockheads ; or the
Affrighted Officers, a not over nice production,
which jeers at the situation of officers and ref-
ugees when forced to evacuate the town. The
characters are —
Captain Bashard Ad — 1.
Puff G— 1.
L — d Dapper ~| L — d P — y.
Shallow [• Officers G— t.
Dupe J Who you please.
. G-y.
. R— s.
. B— e.
. M— y.
. E— n.
Refugees and
Friends to
Government
Meagre
Surly
Brigadier Paunch
Bowny
Simple
Jemima, wife to Simple.
Tabitha, her daughter.
Dorsa, her maid.
Soldiers, women, etc.
It is not difficult to supply the hiatus to the
names, and read Lord Percy, Gilbert (Burgoyne
perhaps is " Dupe "), Gray, Ruggles, Brattle,
Murray, and Edson. Lord Percy is represented
as a libertine, and there is some attempt at
characterizing the several Loyalists. Brattle
had the reputation of being a good liver, and
Ruggles of being a rough-spoken man ; but
the hits in the piece were more telling to those
closer to the characters in time. In the pro-
logue are the lines —
" By Yankees frighted, too! Oh, dire to say !
Why, Yankees sure at Red-coats faint away!
Oh, yes! they thought so too, for lackaday,
Their general turned the blockade to a play.
Poor vain poltroons, with justice we '11 retort,
And call them blockheads for their idle sport."
[See Colonel Clapp's chapter on the " Drama
in Boston," in Vol. IV. — ED.]
1 [See Dr. Hale's chapter in this volume.
— ED.]
2 [Of the Nevis-Letter, see the account in Mr.
Goddard's chapter in this volume ; and regarding
Cooper, see a note by the editor in Mr. PorteVs
chapter, also in the present volume. — ED.]
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 163
Before the town had been finally purged, however, some of the bolder
kept up a communication with their friends outside, by means of signals
from the church steeples. " About three weeks ago," a letter-writer of July
25 says, "three fellows were taken out of one of the latter [steeples], who
confess they had been so employed for seven days." The altercations
between townsmen and soldiers had ceased ; the town was under strict
military discipline ; and though the selectmen were not allowed to leave,
it does not appear that there was any government except that administered
by the General of the army. With his immediate command of fourteen
thousand or so, inclusive of women and children attached to the soldiery,
General Howe treated the place as a garrison, and gave great attention to
the health of the troops ; but the records show that he had a somewhat tur-
bulent and unruly set of men to manage.1 The large number of deserted
houses, the destruction of others for fuel, the defenceless condition of the
families of Patriots who had left the town, — all conspired to tempt plun-
dering and depredation. In one case the wife of one of the privates, con-
victed of receiving stolen goods, was sentenced " to receive one hundred
lashes on her bare back with a cat-o'-nine-tails, at the cart's tail, in different
portions of the most conspicuous parts of the town, and to be imprisoned
three months." The small-pox broke out both in the army and among the
inhabitants, and was still ravaging the town when it was taken possession
of by Washington, after the evacuation.
The evacuation itself was so suddenly determined on that for a few days
the town was in a distracted condition, and the lawlessness which had been
suppressed by the military arm broke out again almost unchecked. For
ten days there was sleepless anxiety. The army was embarking and carry-
ing away such stores as it could, destroying much that it must leave ; plun-
der was going on on all sides, both with and without authority ; and as the
day drew nearer for the departure of the troops the excesses increased,2 in
spite of the following order from General Howe : —
" The commander-in-chief finding, notwithstanding former orders that have been
given to forbid plundering, houses have been forced open and robbed, he is therefore
under a necessity of declaring to the troops that the first soldier who is caught plun-
dering will be hanged on the spot."
John Andrews, who was a very interested witness, gives a vivid account
of his personal anxiety during the last hours of the British possession: 3 —
" By the earnest persuasion of your uncle's friends, and with the advice of the
selectmen, I moved into his house at the time the troops, etc., were preparing for
embarkation, under every difficulty you can conceive at such a time, as every day
presented us with new scenes of the wantonness and destruction made by the soldiers.
1 [This is apparent from the orders, and from 2 [The British soldiers cut down several of
the reiteration of them, with the constant threats the finest trees on the Mall, on the day of their
of corporal punishment. See Waller's Orderly- evacuating the town. — ED.]
book. — ED.] 8 [Mass. Hist. Soc. Prof., 1865, p. 409. — ED.]
164 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
I had the care of six houses with their furniture, and as many stores filled with effects,
for eleven months past ; and, at a time like this, I underwent more fatigue and per-
plexity than I did through the whole siege ; for I was obliged to take my rounds all
day, without any cessation, and scarce ever failed of finding depredations made upon
some one or other of them, that I was finally necessitated to procure men, at the ex-
travagant rate of two dollars a day, to sleep in the several houses and stores for a fort-
night before the military plunderers went off; for as sure as they were left alone one
night, so sure they were plundered. Poor Ben, in addition to his other misfortunes,
suffered in this : the fellow who took charge of his house neglected to sleep there
the third night, being affrighted ; the consequence was, a party of soldiers got in, went
into his cellar, took liquors from thence, and had a revelling frolic in his parlor ; car-
ried off and destroyed his furniture, etc., to the value of two hundred pounds sterling,
— which was not to be named with what fifty other houses suffered, or I may say a
hundred. I was obliged to pay at the rate of a dollar an hour for hands to assist me
in moving. Such was the demand for laborers that they were taken from me even
at that, by the Tories, who bid over me, for the sake of carrying away other people's
effects, wherever they could come at them, which so retarded my moving that I was
obliged to leave my kitchen furniture in the house I left ; consequently it was broken
open and rummaged, and, with all my crockery, were carried off. Wat has stripped
your uncle's house of everything he could conveniently carry off, which, had I known
that had been his intention, I would by no means have consented to go into it ; but as
I had moved most of my heavy things while he was preparing to go, it was too late for
me to get off when I discovered it. Your Uncle Jerry was almost frantic about it,
and said he should write his brother, and acquaint him that I was knowing to it, and
yet permitted him to do it ; little thinking that it was not in my power to prevent his
carrying off everything if he was disposed to do it, as I only took charge of the house
as his (Wat's) substitute. He has left all the looking-glasses and window-curtains,
with some tables and most of the chairs ; only two bedsteads and one bed, without
any bedding or sheets, or even a rag of linen of any kind. Some of the china, and
principal part of the pewter, is the sum of what he has left, save the library, which
was packed up corded to ship ; but your Uncle Jerry and Mr. Austin went to him,
and absolutely forbid it on his peril. He treated them in a very rough, cavalier way ;
told them they had no right to interfere with his business, — he should do as he
pleased, and would not hear what they had to say. Upon the whole, I don't know
but what it would have been as well if he had taken them, seeing matters are going
to be carried with so high a hand."
Through all this family business and the confusion of narrative one may
get a glimpse of the distractions and bitterness of the Tory hegira. " Noth-
ing can be more diverting," says an amateur dramatist, " than to see the
town in its present situation. All is uproar and confusion ; carts, trucks,
wheelbarrows, handbarrows, coaches, chaises, are driving as if the very devil
was after them." l The return, piecemeal, of the clocks, chests of drawers,
tables, and chairs, which then emigrated to the Provinces, continues to
this day.
It is interesting to observe, as one of the first signs of the return of Boston
to its independent life, that the Thursday Lecture was revived ; and Dr. Eliot
1 " The Blockheads," Act iii. Scene 3.
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 165
delivered the first as a thanksgiving discourse in the presence of His Excel-
lency, General Washington. Shortly after, a town-meeting was held in the
Old Brick Meeting-house, and officers for the year were chosen as usual.
The town-meeting and the church were the spiritual Boston which asserted
itself before commercial and trading Boston had revived. The town felt its
insecurity. No one knew how soon the enemy might return with increased
force and more strenuous measures, and it was only by degrees that the
people returned and resumed their occupations. On April 19 the shops
remained generally closed. " The town yet looks melancholy," writes
Ezekiel Price in his diary, under that day ; " but few of the inhabitants
being removed back into it, occasioned by its not being sufficiently fortified
and garrisoned against any further attempt of the enemy, to which it now
lies much exposed." It is significant of the growing consciousness of the
historic conflict, that he adds : " This day is the anniversary of the famous
battle of Lexington." l
The Revolutionary War did not again make Boston a theatre of action ;
but the town was subjected to at least one panic.2 It was not till the close
of the period that the people saw anything of military pageant. Then they
welcomed the entry of Rochambeau's forces after the battle of Yorktown,
and the harbor was bright with the flags of the French fleet. The visit of
these famous allies was the occasion of a general rejoicing. The war was
over, and the people asked for no better opportunity for an outburst of
hospitality. Sam Adams called a town-meeting, and with James Sullivan
prepared an address from Boston to Baron Viomenil, the chief officer;
Rochambeau himself having embarked elsewhere.3 But during the period
1 Diary of Ezekiel Price in Mass. Hist. Soc. Paris to the committee of foreign correspondence:
Proc., November, 1863. "February 3. An expedition, with ten thousand
2 Mrs. John Adams, writing to her husband of the enemy's best troops, will take place in
under date of Aug. 5, 1777, says: "If alarming about two months, from Ireland. Altho' from
half-a-dozen places at the same time is an act of the profound secrecy observed I have not yet
generalship, Howe may boast of his late con- been able to discover its destination with cer-
duct. We have never, since the evacuation of tainty, yet I have sufficient reason to think that
Boston, been under apprehensions of an invasion Boston is the object of it." — ED.]
equal to what we suffered last week. All Boston 8 [The artillery were the earliest to reach
was in confusion, packing up and carting out of Boston, arriving on November 18. Rocham-
town household furniture, military stores, goods, beau, who had accompanied the army to Provi-
etc. Not less than a thousand teams were em- dence, here transferred the command of it to the
ployed on Friday and Saturday ; and, to their Baron de Viomenil, and returned to the Chesa-
shame be it told, not a small trunk would they peake and embarked. The main body of the
carry under eight dollars, and many of them, I army reached Boston on December 3, 4, and 5,
am told, asked a hundred dollars a load; for being favored with fair weather. On the twenty-
carting a hogshead of molasses eight miles, third Viomenil went on board the " Triomphant,"
thirty dollars. O human nature! or, rather, O and on the twenty-fourth the whole squadron, ten
inhuman nature ! what art thou ? The report of sail in all, mounting seven hundred and fifty-
the fleet's being seen off Cape Ann, Friday night, eight guns and carrying four thousand men, put
gave me the alarm, and, though pretty weak, I to sea. (Mag. of Amer. Hist., July, 1881.) The
set about packing up my things, and on Satur- address of the citizens of Boston to Viomenil,
day removed a load." — Familiar Letters of John adopted at a meeting held December 7, and his
A Jains, and his wife Abigail Adams, during the reply, are reprinted in Mag. of Amer. Hist., July,
Revolution, p. 287. 1881, p. 32, from the Pennsylvania Packet, Jan.
[Three years later there was another period 8, 1783. See also an account of these procced-
of suspense. In 1780, Arthur Lee writes from ings in Drake's Landmarks of Boston, 433.— ED.]
166 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
from 1776 to 1783 there were occasional visits from French vessels, and
the reports made by Frenchmen who received the hospitality of the town
give a hint of the social life of the period. The Frenchmen themselves
were objects of great curiosity. Mr. Breck says in his entertaining Recol-
lections : —
" Before the Revolution the colonists had little or no communication with France,
so that Frenchmen were known to them only through the prejudiced medium of
England. Every vulgar story told by John Bull about Frenchmen living on salad
and frogs was implicitly believed by Brother Jonathan, even by men of education
and the first standing in society. When, therefore, the first French squadron arrived
at Boston [in 1778], the whole town, most of whom had never seen a Frenchman,
ran to the wharves to catch a peep at the gaunt, half-starved, soup-maigre crews.
AUTOGRAPHS OF FRENCH OFFICERS.
How much were my good townsmen astonished when they beheld plump, portly offi-
cers and strong, vigorous sailors ! They could scarcely credit the thing, apparent as
it was. Did these hearty-looking people belong to the lantern-jawed, spindle-shank
race of mounseers ? In a little while they became convinced that they had been de-
ceived as to their personal appearance ; but they knew, notwithstanding their good
looks, that they were no better than frog-eaters, because they had been discovered hunt-
ing them in the noted Frog-pond at the bottom of the Common. With this notion
in his head, Mr. Nathaniel Tracy, who lived in a beautiful villa at Cambridge,1 made
a great feast for the admiral, Count D'Estaing, and his officers. Everything was fur-
nished that could be had in the country to ornament and give variety to the entertain-
ment. My father was one of the guests, and told me often after that two large tureens
of soup were placed at the ends of the table. The admiral sat on the right of Tracy,
and Monsieur de 1'Etombe on the left. L'Etombe was consul of France, resident at
Boston. Tracy filled a plate with soup which went to the admiral, and the next was
handed to the consul. As soon as L'Etombe put his spoon into his plate he fished
up a large frog, just as green and perfect as if he had hopped from the pond into
1 [The Cragie or LongfeHow house. — ED.]
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 167
the fureen. Not knowing at first what it was, he seized it by one of its hind legs,
and, holding it up in view of the whole company, discovered that it was a full-grown
frog. As soon as he had thoroughly inspected it, and made himself sure of the mat-
ter, he exclaimed : ' Ah ! mon Dieu ! une grenouille ! ' then, turning to the gentleman
next to him, gave him the frog. He received it and passed it round the table. Thus
the poor crapaud made the tour from hand to hand until it reached the admiral.
The company, convulsed with laughter, examined the soup plates as the servants
brought them, and in each was to be found a frog. (The uproar was universal.
Meantime Tracy kept his ladle going, wondering what his outlandish guests meant by
such extravagant merriment. ' What 's the matter ? ' asked he, and, raising his head,
surveyed the frogs dangling by a leg in all directions. ' Why don't they eat them ? '
he exclaimed. ' If they knew the confounded trouble I had to catch them, in order
to treat them to a dish of their own country, they would find that, with me at least, it
was no joking matter.' Thus was poor Tracy deceived by vulgar prejudice and
common report. He meant to regale his distinguished guests with refined hospitality,
and had caused all the swamps of Cambridge to be searched, in order to furnish them
with a generous supply of what he believed to be, in France, a standing national
dish." i
Mr. Break's father was agent for the French, and is the " Mr. Brick" whose
name occurs so often in that part of the Marquis de Chastellux's Travels in
North America which relates to Boston. This traveller, who was an officer
in the French army, reached Boston during the stay there of Baron de
Viomenil ; and his record, while it gives little description of the town, in-
timates that the hospitality extended to the French was unremitting. He
had scarcely arrived in town before he was hurried off to the Association
ball, where he took notice of the general awkwardness of the Boston dan-
cers. The ladies he thought well dressed, but with less elegance and refine-
ment than those whom he had met at Philadelphia. His visit was filled
with a series of calls and entertainments; and among them he notes a
club: -
" This assembly is held every Tuesday, in rotation, at the houses of the different
members who compose it ; this was the day for Mr. Russell, an honest merchant, who
gave us an excellent reception. The laws of the club are not straitening, the number
of dishes for supper alone are limited, and there must be only two of meat, — for sup-
per is not the American repast. Vegetables, pies, and especially good wine, are not
spared. The hour of assembling is after tea, when the company play at cards, con-
verse, and read the public papers ; and sit down to table between nine and ten. The
supper was as free as if there had been no strangers. Songs were given at table, and a
Mr. Stewart sung some which were very gay, with a tolerable good voice."
A little further on he says: —
" They made me play at whist, for the first time since my arrival in America. The
cards were English, that is, much handsomer and dearer than ours ; and we marked
our points with louis-d'ors, or six-and-thirties. When the party was finished, the loss
1 Recollections of Samuel Breck, with passages from his note-book, pp. 24-27.
1 68 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
was not difficult to settle ; for the company was still faithful to that voluntary law
established in society from the commencement of the troubles, which prohibited play-
ing for money during the war. The inhabitants of Boston are fond of high play, and
it is fortunate perhaps that the war happened when it did, to moderate this passion,
which began to be attended with dangerous consequences."
Political clubs had long been active in Boston, and social clubs were
now springing up. From 1777 dates the Wednesday Evening Club, which
has maintained ever since an unbroken succession.1
Another French traveller, the Abbe Robin, who preceded Chastellux,
has left an account of Boston in 1781, which deals more with the external
features of the town: -
" The inside of the town does not at all lessen the idea that is formed by an exterior
prospect. A superb wharf has been carried out above two thousand feet into the sea,
and is broad enough for stores and workshops through the whole of its extent ; it
communicates at right angles with the principal street of the town, which is both large
and spacious, and bends in a curve parallel to the harbor. This street is ornamented
with elegant buildings, for the most part two or three stories high, and many other
streets terminate in this, communicating with it on each side. The form and construc-
tion of the houses would surprise an European eye ; they are built of brick and wood,
not in the clumsy and melancholy taste of our ancient European towns, but regularly,
and well provided with windows and doors. The wooden work, or frame, is light,
covered on the outside with thin boards, well planed, and lapped over each other as we
do tiles on our roofs in France. These buildings are generally painted with a pale white
color, which renders the prospect much more pleasing than it would otherwise be ; the
roofs are set off with balconies, doubtless for the more ready extinguishing of fire ; the
whole is supported by a wall of about a foot high ; it is easy to see how great an ad-
vantage these houses have over ours in point of neatness and salubrity. All the parts
of these buildings are so well joined, and their weight is so equally divided and pro-
portionate to their bulk, that they may be removed from place to place with little
difficulty. I have seen one of two stories high removed above a quarter of a mile, if
not more, from its original situation ; and the whole French army have seen the same
thing done at Newport. What they tell us of the travelling habitations of the Scyth-
ians is far less wonderful. Their household furniture is simple, but made of choice
wood, after the English fashion, which renders its appearance less gay ; their floors are
covered with handsome carpets, or printed cloths, but others sprinkle them with fine
sand.
" This city is supposed to contain about six thousand houses, and thirty thousand
inhabitants ; 2 there are nineteen churches for the several sects here, all of them con-
venient, and several finished with taste and elegance, especially those of the Presby-
terians and the Church of England ; their form is generally a long square, ornamented
with a pulpit, and furnished with pews of a similar fabrication throughout. The poor
1 [The Centennial Celebration of the IVednes- dwelling-houses, stores, and public buildings,
day Evening Club, Instituted June 2\, 1777, Boston, exclusive of distilleries, sugar-houses, rope-walks,
1878, gives the story of its career. — ED.] mechanics' shops, and stables. (See z Mass. Hist.
2 The Abbe's arithmetic is as wild as some Coll., ix. 204-222.) The population in 1783 did
of his generalizing. In 1789 there were, by actual not exceed eighteen thousand, and remained
count, two thousand six hundred and thirty-nine stationary for several years.
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 169
as well as the rich hear the word of God in these places, in a convenient and decent
posture of body. Sunday is observed with the utmost strictness ; all business, how
important soever, is then totally at a stand, and the most innocent recreations and
pleasures prohibited.1 Boston, that populous town, where at other times there is. such
a hurry of business, is on this day a mere desert ; you may walk the streets without
meeting a single person, or if by chance you meet one, you scarcely dare to stop and
talk with him. A Frenchman that lodged with me took it into his head to play on the
flute on Sundays for his amusement ; the people upon hearing it were greatly enraged,
collected in crowds round the house, and would have carried matters to extremity in
a short time with the musician, had not the landlord given him warning of his danger,
and forced him to desist.2 Upon this day of melancholy you cannot go into a house
but you find the whole family employed in reading the Bible ; and indeed it is an
affecting sight to see the father of a family surrounded by his household, hearing him
explain the sublime truths of this sacred volume. Nobody fails here of going to the
place of worship appropriated to his sect. In these places there reigns a profound
silence ; an order and respect is also observable which has not been seen for a long
time in our Catholic churches. Their psalmody is grave and majestic ; and the har-
mony of the poetry, in their national tongue, adds a grace to the music, and contributes
greatly toward keeping up the attention of the worshippers. . . .
" Piety is not the only motive that brings the American ladies in crowds to the
various places of worship. Deprived of all shows and public diversions whatever, the
church is the grand theatre where they attend to display their extravagance and
finery. There they come dressed off in the finest silks, and overshadowed with a pro-
fusion of the most superb plumes. The hair of the head is raised and supported upon
cushions to an extravagant height, somewhat resembling the manner in which the
French ladies wore their hair some years ago. Instead of powdering, they often wash
the head, which answers the purpose well enough, as their hair is commonly of an
agreeable light color ; but the more fashionable among them begin now to adopt the
present European method of setting off the head to the best advantage. They are of
a large size, well proportioned, their features generally regular, and their complexion
fair, without ruddiness. They have less cheerfulness and ease of behavior than the
ladies of France, but more of greatness and dignity. I have even imagined that I
have seen something in them that answers to the idea of beauty we gain from
those master-pieces of the artists of antiquity, which are yet extant in our days.
1 [Mr. Charles Deane points out to the 2 [It is pertinent to consider that perhaps no
Editor some satirical lines on the " Boston SaB- small part of this aversion arose from the com-
bath," printed in the Newport News-Letter, May mingling, in the common mind, of Papist and
19, 1761, of which a few are : — Frenchman. The time had not far gone by
when, under the stress of the French and In-
" Six days, said He (and loud the same expressed), d;an nQ ford coujd SQ- Jn Boston
Shall men still labour ; on the seventh rest :
But here, alas! in this great pious Town, without being a suspected French spy; and i
They annul his law, and thus prefer their own. a Frenchman, a Papist. There were those still
living who could remember when Governor
Five days and half shall men, and women too, Belcher issued the warrant, March 17, 1731, now
Attend their business and their mirth pursue. , • ., /-^, .. T, .,_,. ,. .,
, , . .,, . preserved m the Charity Building, directing the
One day and half tis requisite to rest
From toilsome labour and a luscious feast." sheriff of Suffolk to search for Papists who joined
with their priest speedily designed to celebrate
The beginning of Sunday observance on Sat- mass ; and, if need be, to break open any dwell-
urday at sunset has obtained in New England ing-house, etc. Accompanying this warrant is a
country towns down to a recent day, if indeed list of such Papists in Boston, largely men-ser-
this custom is yet wholly disused. — ED.] vants, etc. — ED.]
VOL. III. — 22.
1^0 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
The stature of the men is tall, and their carriage erect, but their make is rather slim,
and their color inclining to pale ; they are not so curious in their dress as the women,
but everything upon them is neat and proper. At twenty-five years of age the
women begin to lose the bloom and freshness of youth ; and at thirty-five or forty,
their beauty is gone. The decay of the men is equally premature ; and I am inclined
to think that life itself is here proportionably short. I visited all the burying-grounds
in Boston, where it is usual to inscribe upon the stone over each grave the name and
age of the deceased, and found that few who had arrived to a state of manhood ever
advanced beyond their fiftieth year ; fewer still to seventy ; and beyond that scarcely
any."
The picture of Boston given by the French travellers of this time, as
indeed most of the representations of America then from the same sources,
have an air of insincerity about them, as if written by men preoccupied with
notions as to the virginal character of American nature and society. The
people of Boston themselves were, during the progress of the war and im-
mediately afterward, in a restless, semi-violent condition, demoralized by the
sudden changes of fortune which befell merchants, and by the inequalities
of life resultant upon war and disturbed relations. Sam Adams, always a
democrat in principle and a doctrinaire in poverty, was indignant at the
display of wealth made by Hancock and others. He frowned upon the in-
creasing extravagance and levity of the town ; l and he resorted to his
favorite method of holding public meetings in rebuke of the temper, but
with little avail. Minot the historian gives, in a few words, the general
character of the change at work in society : —
" The usual consequences of war were conspicuous upon the habits of the people
of Massachusetts. Those of the maritime towns relapsed into the voluptuousness
which arises from the precarious wealth of naval adventurers. An emulation prevailed
among men of fortune to exceed each other in the full display of their riches. This
was imitated among the less opulent classes of citizens, and drew them off from those
principles of diligence and economy which constitute the best support of all govern-
ments, and particularly of the republican. Besides which, what was most to be la-
mented, the discipline and manners of the army had vitiated the taste and relaxed
the industry of the yeomen. In this disposition of the people to indulge the use of
luxuries, and in the exhausted state of the country, the merchants saw a market for
foreign manufactures. The political character of America, standing in a respectable
view abroad, gave a confidence and credit to individuals heretofore unknown. This
credit was improved, and goods were imported to a much greater amount than could
be consumed and paid for." 2
The most conspicuous person in this display of wealth and state was un-
doubtedly John Hancock, — a good-natured, vain man, with excellent quali-
ties which his contemporaries perceived, but which have been obscured by
his inordinate conceit and love of extreme distinction. John Adams ob-
served with satisfaction Hancock's chagrin at finding himself subordinated
to the Virginian, Washington, at the beginning of the contest, when Han-
1 See Wells, Life of Samuel Adams, iii. 157-159. - fnsiirrectioits in Massachusetts, p. 12.
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 171
cock's reputation was quite as general as Washington's ; but he lets us also
see the sincere good-nature and fundamental humility with which he bore
his lesser rank. Among his own townsmen the rich Bostonian dearly loved
to make himself of importance. " King Hancock" was the sobriquet which
he earned, and he was a constant butt for Tory wits.1 In the Pennsylvania
Ledger for March 1 1, 1778, " a gentleman from the eastward " says: —
" John Hancock of Boston appears in public with all the pageantry and state of an
Oriental prince ; he rides in an elegant chariot, which was taken in a prize to the
' Civil Usage ' pirate vessel, and by the owners presented to him. He is attended
by four servants dressed in superb livery, mounted on fine horses richly caparisoned ;
and escorted by fifty horsemen with drawn sabres, the one-half of whom precede
and the other follow his carriage." 2
A good observer writes in 1 780 : —
"Boston affords nothing new but complaints upon complaints. I have been
credibly informed that a person who used to live well has been obliged to take the
feathers out of his bed and sell them to an upholsterer to get money to buy bread.
Many doubtless are exceedingly distressed ; and yet, such is the infatuation of the day,
that the rich, regardless of the necessities of the poor, are more luxurious and extrava-
gant than formerly.3 Boston exceeds even Tyre ; for not only are her merchants
princes, but even her tavern-keepers are gentlemen. May it not be more tolerable for
Tyre than for her ! There can be no surer sign of a decay of morals than the tavern-
keepers growing rich fast." 4
We have -but scanty personal recollections preserved of this period re-
lating to the common life within the town, and must have recourse again to
the good-natured Mr. Breck, who piques us by forgetting more important
things than he remembered. His childhood was spent in Boston ; and he
remembered well the old beacon which stood on the hill, and was blown
down in 1 789 : —
" Spokes were fixed in a large mast, on the top of which was placed a barrel of pitch
or tar, always ready to be fired on the approach of the enemy. Around this pole I
have fought many battles, as a South End boy,5 against the boys of the North End of
the town ; and bloody ones, too, with slings and stones very skilfully and earnestly used.
In what a state of semi-barbarism did the rising generations of those days exist ! From
time immemorial these hostilities were carried on by the juvenile part of the community.
The school-masters whipt, parents scolded, — nothing could check it. Was it a rem-
nant of the pugilistic propensities of our British ancestors ; or was it an untamed feeling
arising from our sequestered and colonial situation ? Whatever was the cause, every-
1 [See further on Hancock in Mr. Porter's tions to a ball given by him at Concert Hall, in
and Mr. Lodge's chapters. — ED.] November, 1780, printed on the back of playing-
2 Moore's Diary of the American Revolution, cards, — showing scarcity in other things than
ii. II, 12. The "gentleman from the eastward " the necessaries of life. — ED.]
appears to have been the ancestor of the similar 4 Hazard to Belknap, 5 Mass. Hist. Coll.,\\. 47.
character who, during the late war, was always 6 Mr. Breck's house was on Tremont Street,
coming away from the front. at the corner of Winter Street ; and this shows
3 [It is said that Hancock issued his invita- how local appellations have changed.
172 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
thing of the kind ceased with the termination of our Revolutionary War. ... I forget
on what holiday it was that the Anticks, another exploded remnant of colonial man-
ners, used to perambulate the town. They have ceased to do it now ; but I remem-
ber them as late as 1 782. They were a set of the lowest blackguards, who, disguised
in filthy clothes and ofttimes with masked faces, went from house to house in large
companies ; and, bon gre, mal gre, obtruding themselves everywhere, particularly into
the rooms that were occupied by parties of ladies and gentlemen, would demean
themselves with great insolence. I have seen them at my father's, when his assembled
friends were at cards, take possession of a table, seat themselves on rich furniture, and
proceed to handle the cards, to the great annoyance of the company. The only way
to get rid of them was to give them money, and listen patiently to a foolish dialogue
between two or more of them. One of them would cry out : —
" ' Ladies and gentlemen sitting by the fire,
Put your hands in your pockets and give us our desire.'
When this was done, and they had received some money, a kind of acting took place.
One fellow was knocked down and lay sprawling on the carpet, while another bellowed
out: —
" ' See, there he lies !
But ere he dies,
A doctor must be had.'
He calls for a doctor, who soon appears, and enacts the part so well that the wounded
man revives. In this way they would continue for half an hour ; and it happened not
unfrequently that the house would be filled by another gang when these had departed.
There was no refusing admittance. Custom had licensed these vagabonds to enter
even by force any place they chose. What should we say to such intruders now ?
Our manners would not brook such usage a moment. Undoubtedly these plays were
a remnant of the old mysteries of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.1
" Connected with this subject and period may be mentioned the inhuman and re-
volting custom of punishing criminals in the open street. The large whipping-post,
painted red, stood conspicuously and permanently in the most public street in town.
It was placed in State Street,2 directly under the windows of a great writing-school
which I frequented, and from them the scholars were indulged in the spectacle of all
kinds of punishment, suited to harden their hearts and brutalize their feelings. Here
1 Since the publication of Breck's Recollec- St. George and the Dragon fight, and the
tions a correspondent has called the Editor's at- latter is killed. Father Christmas calls out :
tention to the probable origin of this horse-play. « Is there a jo^o,. to be found,
In Hervey's Book of Christmas, a Cornwall mys- All ready near at hand,
tery is given by Mr. Sandys as "still performed 'To cure a deep and deadly wound,
in Cornwall;" at the date, that is, of 1786. And make the champion stand?'
In this Mystery several characters, as the Turk- The doctor appears, performs his cure, the fight
ish Knight, the King of Egypt, St. George, is renewed, and the dragon again killed.
the Dragon, Father Christmas, and others, The scraps of this performance, as given by
enter by turn. When Father Christmas enters, Mr. Breck, do seem to be a reminiscence of this
he says : West-of-Englancl Mystery ; and it appears as if
" Here come I, old Father Christmas! some of the townspeople from that section had
Welcome, or welcome not ; brought with them a rude sport which died out
I hope old Father Christmas jn t},e more actjve( stirring life of the town.
Will never be forgot. , r~,, , . , ,
I come not here to laugh or jeer, ' [The whipping-post was later removed to
But for a pocketful of money and a skinful of b««r." Tremout Street, near the West Street gate.— ED.]
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
173
women were taken from a huge cage in which they were dragged on wheels from
prison, and tied to the post, with bare backs, on which thirty or forty lashes were be-
stowed, amid the screams of the culprits and the uproar of the mob. A little farther
in the street was to be seen the pillory, with three or four fellows fastened by the head
and hands, and standing for an hour in that helpless posture, exposed to gross and
cruel insult from the multitude, who pelted them incessantly with rotten eggs and
every repulsive kind of garbage that could be collected. These things I have often
witnessed ; but they have given way to better systems, better manners, and better
feelings." l
We have had occasion more than once to speak of the town-meeting
as an exponent of Boston ideas. A single passage from Break's Recollec-
tions will suffice as an illustration of the same institution when taken as an
exponent of the manners of the town. When Lafayette was in Boston in
I/84,2 he received a good many attentions from the Breck family.
" Anxious to show him all that related to our institutions and manners, my father
invited him one day to go to Faneuil Hall to hear the discussion of some municipal
law then in agitation. ' You will see," said he, ' the quiet proceedings of our towns-
men, and- learn by a personal examination how erroneous is the general opinion abroad
that a large community cannot be governed by a pure democracy. Here we have in
Boston,' continued he, ' about eighteen thousand inhabitants, and all our town business
1 Recollections of Samuel Breck, pp. 33-37.
2 [Lafayette was not personally unknown in
Boston ; he had been here more than once be-
fore. It will be remembered that after the fail-
ure of the Rhode Island campaign, in 1778,
he had come to Boston to use his per-
suasion with the commander of the French
fleet not to desert the cause. After York-
town, when he hastened to France to carry
despatches to the French king, as well as
from tenderer impulses, he had come to
Boston to embark, reaching here on Dec.
10, 1781. Here he had been enthusias-
tically received ; a committee of the town,
of which Samuel Adams was chairman, had pre-
sented an address to him ; and a subscription
taking place to rebuild the Charlestown meeting-
house, burned during the battle on Bunker Hill,
Lafayette had placed his name on the list for
twenty-five guineas. The officers of the Massa-
chusetts Line also presented an address. He
sailed, December 23, in the French frigate " L'Al-
liance." It was Aug. 4, 1784, when Lafayette
again landed in New York ; and after first visiting
Mount Vernon, he began that triumphal progress
through the country which evinced the love the
people bore for him. As he approached Boston,
in October, the officers of the army met him at
Watertown ; then in a procession he made his
entry over Boston Neck, through throngs of
people, while he was conducted to a tavern,
where he returned their compliments in a speech
from a. balcony. In the evening the street Ian-
terns were lighted for the first time since the
peace. On the nineteenth, the anniversary of
Yorktown, Governor Hancock received him
formally. Five hundred gentlemen dined with
their guest in Faneuil Hall. Thirteen decorated
arches surrounded the room, and Lafayette sat
under a huge fleur-de-lis. Thirteen guns in the
market-place accompanied as many patriotic
toasts. When that one proposing the health of
Washington was drunk, a curtain fell and dis-
closed a picture of the General, crowned with
laurel, and wearing the color of America and
France. Lafayette led off the response with
" Vive Washington ! " In the evening, Madam
Haley, a sister of the notorious John Wilkes
(see Vol. II. p. xliv), and a leader of fashion
in the town, gave a great party, and there
were many illuminations throughout the streets.
Some days later, after he had made excursions
along the coast, he embarked in the French
frigate " La Nymphe," and sailed for Virginia.
Magazine of American History, December, 1878.
— ED.]
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
BOSTON March J9, 1783.
Lift night Colonel John TrumSuH arrived Ix
tliii town ; and brought with him the following
very important
INTELLIGENCE,
Philadelphia, jjd March, 178^.
Half pad Six o'Clock.
De*r S I R,
TE N miniifci finer, the Captain of the
Hyder Aly came to M'\ Morris's, where I
dined, with nn account of a Ficnch packet being
arrived at ChrAcr, i>\ riwty days from
with the news that a
waj fignrH ths Twentieth of January ; and that
Hoflihties were to ceafe, oo tint coif), (he zoili
of this month.
Tuft now a meiTengcr arrived from Monfirur
Vallogoe, to th« Minuter, with the Lwne new; ;
and that the Caprein of the packet \rn on the
rood with the difpatcb.es.
is done in a general assembly of the people.' The Marquis, glad of the opportunity,
consented to attend my father. By and by the great bell of the celebrated Doctor
Samuel Cooper's church, with a dozen others,
called the inhabitants together. I forget what
the business was, but it inspired universal in-
terest, and drew to the hall an overflowing
house. The Marquis was of course well ac-
commodated, and sat in silent admiration at
the demure manner in which the moderator
was chosen and inducted to the chair, and the
meeting fully organized. Then the debate
opened. One speaker affirmed, another de-
nied, a third rejoined ; each increasing in
vehemence, until the matter in debate was
changed into personal sarcasm. Gibe fol-
lowed gibe, commotion ensued, the popular
mass rolled to and fro, disorder reached its
height, and the elders of the town were glad
to break up the stormy meeting, and postpone
the discussion. My father led the Marquis out
in the midst of the angry multitude. When
fairly disengaged from the crowd he said to
the illustrious stranger : ' This is not the sam-
ple which I wished to show you of our mode
of deliberating. Never do I recollect to have
seen such fiery spirits assembled in this hall,
and I must beg you not to judge of us by what
you have seen to-day ; for good sense, mod-
eration, and perfect order are the usual char-
acteristics of my fellow-townsmen, here and elsewhere.' ' No doubt, no doubt,' said
the Marquis laughing; 'but it is well enough to know that there are exceptions to
the general rule,' or words to that effect, — meaning to make a joke of the matter,
which was, indeed, very often afterward the occasion of mirthful remarks upon the
forbearance, calmness, decorum, and parliamentary politeness ever to be found in
deliberative assemblies of pure democracy." 2
Perhaps, if Mr. Breck had been philosophically disposed, he might have
reminded his guest that the town-meeting offered an opportunity for the
escape of feeling, and was thus a safety-valve. The newspaper had not yet
taken the place of the public assembly as the clearest reflection of the life
of the day.
1 [This reduction of the Extra announcing the
conclusion of a general peace is made from an
original owned by Colonel W. W. Clapp. The
general celebration came later. William Bur-
beck rendered his bill, Feb. 28, 1784, to the
God blefs yoo 1
J. Wadf*orth, Efq,
Your'i,
J CARTER.
PEACE EXTRA.
State for building a stage to exhibit the fire-
works for celebrating the peace, amounting to
£16 i;j. 3</. — ED.]
2 Recollections of Samuel Breck, pp. 39, 40.
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
175
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES BY THE EDITOR.
THE LOYALISTS. — Sabine, in his American
Loyalists, estimates that some two thousand ad-
herents of the King left Massachusetts. It is
also stated that of the three hundred and ten
who were banished by the State, over sixty were
Harvard graduates. John Adams was inclined
to believe that in the Colonies at large not more
than two-thirds were against the Crown, and
some of the Colonies were about equally divided.
" The last contest in the town of Boston, in
1775, between Whig and Tory, was decided by
five against two." — Works, x. 63, 87. Without
aiming to make it complete, we offer the follow-
ing list of such of the Loyalists as may claim,
either as inhabitants or by official residence or
association, to have some connection with Bos-
ton. In making it we have used, besides
Sabine, the list of the proscribed in 1778, as
given in Vol. II. 563; the "list of the inhabi-
tants of Boston who on the evacuation by the
British removed to Halifax with the army,"
which is printed in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc.,
Dec. 1880, p. 266 (see also Curwen'' s Journal,
p. 485) ; the address to Hutchinson and its
signers, June i, 1774, given in the Mass. Hist.
Soc. Proc., Feb. 1871, p. 43, and on p. 45, the
" Solemn League and Covenant," reported by
Warren on the fifth of June, and sent out to the
towns as a circular, which occasioned a " pro-
test " and a " proclamation " from Gage, likewise
printed in the same place.
The names of the " protesters " against the
" Solemn League and Covenant," and of the
addressers of Hutchinson in 1774, are printed
in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., Oct. 1870, p. 392. The
signers to the address to Hutchinson in 1774 is
also in Curweifs Journal, p. 465. The two
volumes marked " Royalists," in the Mass. Ar-
chives (vol. i. 1775-84, and ii. 1778-84) have
also been examined. They are made up very
largely of returns from town committees to the
Provincial Congress, respecting suspected per-
sons, confiscated estates, with the accounts of
the agents of such estates, the doings of the
Committee of Sequestration, conveyances of the
property, etc. In the first volume, pp. 333 and
338, is the return June 13, 1782, of the Com-
mittee on Confiscated Estates in Suffolk County,
showing whose estates were settled by an agent
of the Province, and to whom the different lots
and buildings were sold, and for what sum ; the
whole amounting to .£32,062 8s. zd. Numerous
papers relating to absentee's estates, 1782-89,
are in Mass. Archives, cxxxix. and beginning
p. 470, are the bonds of persons " supposed to
be royalists." The confiscation acts of Massa-
chusetts are printed in Curwsn's Journal, p. 475,
and the banishment act of 1778, in Ibid. p. 479.
The Journals and Letters of Samuel Curwen give
the best account of life among the Loyalists in
England, and numerous notices of Loyalists are
appended to it, as edited by George A. Ward,
Boston, 1864. A New England club of Loyalists
was formed in London in 1776, consisting of
the following: — Thomas Hutchinson, Richard
Clark, Joseph Green, Jonathan Bliss, Jonathan
Sewall, Joseph Waldo, S. S. Blowers, Elisha
Hutchinson, William Hutchinson, Samuel Sew-
all, Samuel Quincy, Isaac Smith, Harrison Gray,
David Greene, Jonathan Clark, Thomas Flucker,
Joseph Taylor, Daniel Silsbee, Thomas Brinley,
William Cabot, John S. Copley, Nathaniel Cof-
fin, Samuel Porter, Benjamin Pickman, John
Amory, Robert Auchmuty, Major Urquhart,
Samuel Curwen, Edward Oxnard, — most of
whom were associated with Boston.
Dr. John C. Warren, in 1800, speaks of the
visits he paid in England to the Tories, Harrison
Gray, the Vassalls, and others, who were then
living there " very comfortably." Life of John
Collins Warren, i. 48.
The enumeration below is confined in the
main to heads of families : —
Acre, Thomas Berry, Edward
Allen, Ebenezer Berry, John
Allen, Jt remiah Bethel, Robert, Cl. Col.
Allen, Jolley1 Bethune, George n
Amory, John Black, David
Amory, Thomas2 Black, John
Anderson, James3 Black, William
Andros, Barret Blair, John, Baker
Apthorp, Rev. East* Blair, Robert
Apthorp, Thomas8 Blair, William
Apthorp, William e Blowers, Sams'n Salter 12
Asby, James Borland, John 13
Ashley, Joseph Borland, John Lindall 14
Atkins, Gibbs7 Bouman, Archibald
Atkinson, John, Merch. Boutineau, James15
Auchmuty, Robert 8 Bowen, John
Auhard, Benjamin Bowers, Archibald
Aylwin, Thomas Bowes, W ill iam, y1/<fr.ie
Ayres, Eleanor Bowles, William
Badger, Rev. Moses9 Bowman, Arch'ld, Auc.
Baker, John, Jr. Boylston, John 17
Barclay, Andrew Boylston, Thomas18
Barnard, John Boylston, Ward Nich's19
Barrell, Colburn Bradstreet, Samuel
Barrell, Walter, In. Gen. Brandon. John
Barrick, James, Cl. Ins. Brattle, Maj. Thomas20
Barton, David Brattle, William
Beath, Mary Bridgham, Ebenezer
Fernard, Sir Francis n Brinley, George 21
76
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Brinley, Thomas, MerP Cooley, John
Broderick, John Copley John Singleton*'2
Brown, David Cotton, John 43
Brown, Thomas, Mer. Courtney, James
Bruce, James23 Courtney, Richard
Bryant, John Courtney, Thomas
Brymer, Alexander Cox, Edward
Bulfinch, Samuel Cox, Lemuel
Burch, William'24 Crane, Timothy
Burroughs, John Crow, Charles44
Burton, Mary, Milliner Cummins, A. and E.
Burton, William Cunningham, Archib'd45
Butler, Gillam Cushman, Elkanah
Butler, James Cutler, Ebenezer46
Butter, James Danforth, Dr. Sam'l 47
Byles.Rev.Dr. Mather26 Danforth, Thomas *8
Byles, Mather, Jr.'2"5 Davies, William
Calef, Robert'27 Davis, Benjamin
Campbel, William Davis, Edward
Caner, Rev. Dr. Henry ^Deblois, Gilbert 49
Capen, Hopestill De Blois, Lewis80
Carr, Mrs. Dechezzan, Adam 51
Carver, Melzer & Demsey, Roger
Gary, Nathaniel Dickenson, Nathaniel
Case, James Dickinson, Francis
Caste, Dennis Dickinson, William
Caste, Dr. Thomas Dickson, William
Cazneau, And'w.Zaw.80 Domette, Joseph
Cazneau, Edward 31 Dougherty, Edward
Cazneau, William Doyley, Francis
Cednor, William Doyley, John
Ceely, John Draper, Margaret 62
Chadwel, Samuel Draper, Richard »
Chandler, John, Esq.32 Dudley, Charles, Col-
Chandler, Nathaniel lector, Newport.
Chandler, Rufus, Law. Duelly, William
Chandler, William Dumaresq. Philip, Mer.M
Cheever, Wm. Downe Duncan, Alexander
Chipman, Ward83 Dunlap, Daniel
Church, Dr. Benjamin84 Duyer, Edmund
Clark, Benjamin Edson, Josiah
Clark, John Elton, Peter
Clark, Joseph Emerson, John
Clarke, Isaac Winslow Erving, George55
Clarke, Jonathan35 Erving, John66
Clarke, Richard ™ Erving, John, Jr.57
Clemmens, Thomas Fall, Thomas
Clement, Capt. Joseph Faneuil, Benjamin58
Clementson, Samuel Faneuil, Benjamin, Jr.
Codner, William Field, John
Coffin, Ebenezer 37 Fillis, John
Coffin, John38 Fisher, Turner59
Coffin, Nathaniel Fisher, Wilfred
Coffin, Nathaniel ^ Fitch, Samuel
Coffin, Nathaniel, Jr. Fleming, John °°
Coffin, Sir Thos. Aston41 Flucker, Thomas Cl
Coffin, William 41 Forrest, James °2
Coffin, Wm. Jr. .IfercA. Foster, Edward
Colepepper, James Foster, Edward, Jr.
Connor, Mrs. Frankland, Lady M
Cook, Robert Fullerton, Stephen
Gamage, James Hooper, Jacob
Garcliner.Dr.Sylvester^Howe, John 83
Gay, Martin05 Hubbaid, Daniel
Gay, Samuel M Hughes, Peter
Gemmill, Matthew Hughes, Samuel
Geyer, Fred'k William67 Hulton, Henry
Goddard, Lemuel Hunt, John
Goldthwait, Ezekiel Hunter, William
Golclth wait, Joseph08 Hurlston, Richard
Goldthwait, M. B. Hutchinson, Eliakim9'
Gookin, Edmund Hutchinson, Elisha91
Gore, John6" Hutchinson, Foster92
Gore, Samuel Hutchinson,Gov.Thos.93
Gorman, Edward Hutchinson, Thos. Jr.'J4
Gray, Andrew Hutchinson, William
Gray, Harrison 70 Inman, John
Gray, Harrison, Jr. Inman, Ralph ^
Gray, John71 Jackson, William M
Gray, Joseph 72 Jarvis, Robert
Gray, Lewis Jeffrey, Patrick 97
Gray, Samuel78 Jeffries, John98
Gray, Thomas Jennex, Thomas
Greecart, John Johonnot, Francis
Greene, Benjamin "4 Johonnot, Peter "
Greene, David75 Joy, John
Greene, Richard70 Kerlancl, Patrick
Green, Francis77 King, Edward •
Green, Hammond Kirk, Thomas
Green, Joseph78 Knight, Thomas
Greenlaw, John Knutton, John 10°
Greenleaf, Stephen 79 Knutton, William
Greenwood, Isaac Laughton, Henry
Greenwood, Nathaniel Laughton, Joseph
Greenwood, Samuel Lawler, Ellis
Gridley, Benjamin8' Lazarus, Samuel
Grison, Edmond Lear, Christopher
Grozart, John Lechmere, Richard wl
Hale, Samuel Leddel, Henry
Hall, James81 Lee, Henry
Hallowell, Benjamin 82 Lee, Judge Joseph 102
Hallowell, Robert 88 Leonard, Daniel
Halson, Henry Leonard, George
Harper, Isaac Leslie, James
Harrison, Joseph 8* Lewis, John
Harrison, Richard A.85 Lillie, Theophilus
Haskins, John Linkieter, Alexander103
Hatch, Christopher Linning, Andrew
Hatch, Hawes Lloyd, Henry 104
Hatch, Nathaniel 86 Lloyd, Dr. James 105
Heath, William Lloyd, Samuel
Henderson, James Loring, Dr. Benjamin1 °
Hester, John Loring, Joshua107
Hewes, Shubael 87 Loring, Joshua, Jr.lc8
Hicks, John 88 Lovell, Benjamin 109
Hinston, John Lovell, John no
H irons, Richard Lowe, Charles
Hodges, Samuel Lush, George
Hodgson, John Lyde, Byfield in
Hodson, Thomas Lyde, Edward m
Holmes, Benjamin M. Lyde, George
Homans, John Lynch, Peter
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
177
McAlpine, William 113 Patten, George
McClintock, Nathan Patterson, William
Macdonald, Dennis Paxton, Charles lii3
McEwen, James Pecker, Dr. James13*
Mackay, Mrs. Pecker, Jeremiah
McKean, Andrew Pelham, Henry
MacKinstrey, Mrs. m Pemberton, Rev. Eb-
McKown, John enezer 135
McMaster, Daniel115 Pepperell, Sir William
McMaster, James 1I6 (the younger) 136
McMasters, Patrick Perkins, Houghton 13;
McMullen, Alexander Perkins, James 138
McNeil, Archibald Perkins, Dr. Nathaniel
McNeil, William Perkins, Dr.Wm. Lee 139
Madden, Richard Perry, William
Magner, John Pettit, John Sam
Malcom, John 117 Phillips, Benjamin
Marston, Benjamin Phillips, Ebenezer
Martin, William Phillips, John Ul)
Massingham, Isaac Phillips, Martha
Mather, Samuel Phips, David l41
Mein, John 118 Pine, Samuel
Meserve, George Pitcher, Moses I42
Mewse, Thomas Pollard, Benjamin
Miller, John Porter, James 143
Mills, Nathaniel 119 Powell, John
Minot, Christopher Powell, William D.
Minot, Samuel Price, Benjamin
Mitchel, Thomas Prince, Job
Mitchelson, David Prince, Samuel
Moody, John • Prout, Timothy
Moody, John, Jr. Putnam, James 144
Moore, Augustus Putnam, James, Jr.145
Moore, John Quincy, Samuel146
Morrison, John 12° Ramage, John
Morrow, Col. Rand, Dr. Isaac147
Mossman, William Randall, Robert
Mulcainy, Patrick m Read, Charles
Mulhall, Edward 122 Reeve, Richard 148
Murray, James Rhodes, Henry
Murray, Col. John 123 Rice, John
Murray, William Richards, Owen
Newton, Richard Richardson.Ebenezer 149
Nevin, Lazarus Roberts, Frederic
Norwood, Ebenezer Rogers, Jeremiah Dum-
Nunn, Samuel mer150
Ochterlony, David124 Rogers, Nathan
Oliver, Andrew 125 Rogers, Samuel
Oliver, Judge Peter 123 Rose, Peter
Oliver, Dr. Peter 127 Rowth, Richard 181
Oliver, Thomas 128 Royall, Isaac 152
Oliver, Wm. Sanford 129 Ruggles, John 153
O'Neil, Joseph Ruggles, Richard
Orcutt, Joseph Ruggles, Timothy
Paddock, Adino 13° Rummer, Richard
Paddock, Adino, Jr.131 Russell, Ezekiel 1M
Page, George Russell, James 155
Paine, Samuel Russell, Nathaniel
Parker, Rev. Samuel 132 Saltonstall, Leverett 156
Parker, William Saltonstall, Richard W
Pashley, George Sampson, John
VOL. III. — 23.
Savage, Abraham
Savage, Arthur158
Scammel, Thomas
Scott, Joseph
Selby, John
Selkrig, James
Selkrig, Thomas
Semple, John
Semple, Robert
Semple, Thomas
Serjeant, John
Service, Robert
Thompson, George
Thompson, James
Timmins, John
Townsend, Gregory
Townsend, Shippy
Troutbeck, Rev. John 176
Trowbridge, Edmund 17S
Tufts, Simon 17?
Tull, Thomas
Turill, Thomas
Vassall, John 178
Vassall, William m
Sewall, Jonathan 159 Vassall, William, Jr.189
Sewall, Samuel I6° Vincent, Ambrose
Sheaffe, Nathaniel 161 Waldo, Joseph ™
Sheaffe, Roger »» Walter, Rev. William 182
Sheaffe, Thos. Child 168 Warden, James
Sheaffe, William ^ Warden, Joseph
Shepard, Joseph Warden, William
Sherwin, Richard Warren, Abraham
Silsby, Daniel Waterhouse, Samuel
Simmonds, William Welsh, James
Simpson, John Welsh, Peter
Simpson, Jeremiah Wendell, Jacob
Simpson, Jonathan l65 Wentworth, Edward 18S
Simpson, William Wheaton, Obadiah
Skinner, Francis Wheelwright, Job
Smith, Edward Wheelwright, Joseph
Smith, Henry i« Whiston, Obadiah
Smith, Richard White, Gideon 1(?4
Snelling, Jonathan ™ White, John ™
Sparhawk, Samuel Whitworth, Nathan'l 186
Spillard, Timothy Whitworth, Dr. Miles 187
Spooner, Ebenezer Whitworth, Dr. Miles,
Spooner, George Jr.188
Stayner, Abigail Willard, Abel 189
Stearns, Jonathan 1G8 Willard, Abijah m
Sterling, Benj. Ferdin'd Williams, Job 191
Sterling, Elizabeth Williams, John 192
Stevens, John 16« Williams, Seth 193
Steward, Adam 17° Willis, David
Story, William Wilson, Archibald
Stow, Edward Wilson, Joseph
Sullivan, Bartholomew Winnet, John, Jr.
Sullivan, George Winslow, Edward 194
Taylor, Charles Winslow, Edwardjr. 1M
Taylor, John Winslow, Mrs. Hannah
Taylor, Joseph 171 Winslow, Isaac 193
Taylor, Nathaniel 172 Winslow, John 197
Taylor, William Winslow, Joshua
Terry, Zebedee Winslow, Pelham 198
Terry, William Wittington, William
Thayer, Arodi 173 Woolen, William
Thomas, Jonathan Worral, Thos. Grooby
Thomas, Nath'l Ray 174 Wright, Daniel
NOTES.
1 See his account of his own tribulations in Mass. Hist.
Soc. Proc,, February, 1878.
2 Brother of John. See Sabine, who shows how their
descendants are well known among us now.
3 Washington speaks of him during the siege as com-
manding the Scotch Company in Boston.
78
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
* Of Christ Church, Cambridge ; the antagonist of
Jonathan Mayhew.
* Estate settled by Martin Brimmer. Inventory in
Mass. Archives, " Royalists," i. 425.
6 Estate settled by John Scollay.
1 Died in Boston in 1806.
8 Estate settled by Saml. G. Jarvis. See Vol.11, and
IV. index. His house is shown in Vol. II. p. 343.
9 Connected with the Saltonstalls. See Sabine.
10 Estate settled by Joseph Smith. See Vol. 1 I. index.
Governor Bernard had left the country in 1769, but his
estate was confiscated ten years later. It comprised fifty
acres.
11 His wife was a daughter of Benjamin Faneuil. He
died at Cambridge in 1785.
12 Went to England in 1774 ; returned in 1778 ; was im-
prisoned ; but being released went to Nova Scotia, where
he attained distinction and died in 1842.
13 Estate settled by Richard Cranch. Inventory taken
April 9, 1776; sold March, 1778. Mass. Archives. "Royal-
ists," i. 423. See Vol. II. index. See Sabine.
14 Estate settled by Israel Hutchinson. Died in Eng-
land in 1825.
M See the chapter on the Huguenots in Vol. II.
16 Died in England in 1805.
17 John Boylston, son of Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, left
Boston in 1768, and lived afterward in London and Bath,
whence his letters through the war evinced his kindly feel-
ings for his townsmen, and he did much to relieve the
sufferings of the American prisoners at Forton. In his
will dated at Bath, in 1793, he makes a bequest " to the
poor and decayed householders of the town of Boston,"
and for " the nurture and instruction of poor orphans and
deserted children of the town of Boston, until fourteen
years of age." The City Auditor's reports show that these
funds now exceed one hundred thousand dollars. N. E.
Hist. &* Geneal. Reg., April, 1881.
18 Died in London in 1798, ruined in fortune and broken
in heart.
J9 Name changed from Hallowell ; was the son of
Benjamin Hallowell, named below. He returned to Bos-
ton in 1800, and died at Roxbury in 1828.
20 Recovered his patrimony by act of the Legislature in
1784, and died in 1801.
21 Died in Halifax in 1809.
22 H. C. 1744 ; died in England in 1784.
23 Perhaps the captain of one of the tea-ships.
24 Commissioner of Customs.
2s See Vol. II. index, and Mr. Scudder's chapter in this
volume.
26 See Vol. II index, and Mr. Goddard's chapter in this
volume.
27 Estate settled by Samuel Partridge ; son of John
Calef, of Ipswich ; died in Virginia in 1801.
28 Estate settled by Lev! Jennings. See Rev. Dr.
Brooks's chapter in this volume. This estate is now covered
in part by the building of the Mass. Hist. Society.
*9 A refugee in Boston ; embarked in 1776.
30 Returned to Boston in 1788, and died in Roxbury in
1792. His property escaped confiscation.
31 Returned after the war; settled in South Carolina,
and died in Boston.
32 From Worcester; took refuge in Boston in 1774, and
embarked in 1776. Died in 1800 in London. George Ban-
croft is his grandson. The three names following are those
of his brothers.
33 He fled into Boston in 1775 : and left with the troops :
became distinguished in Nova Scotia.
34 See a previous page in this volume.
35 Son of Richard.
36 One of the consignees of the Tea, and father-in-law
of Copley the artist. Died in England in 1795.
» Son of William, Jr.
*• Son of Nathaniel, the Receiver-General
*9 Died in New York, in 1780; father of Sil Isaac Coffin.
See Editorial Note to chap. I. of Vol. IV.
40 Son of William, Jr. ; graduated at Harvard College
in 1772.
41 Son of Nathaniel, the Receiver-General.
42 See Mr. Arthur Dexter's chapter in Vol. IV.
43 A great-grandson of the first minister of Boston;
died in Boston in 1776; was royal deputy secretary.
44 Carted to the British lines in Rhode Island in 1777.
** Died respected in Nova Scotia in 1820.
46 Of Northborough ; sent into Boston by General
Ward; left with the troops in 1776.
47 Remained in Boston after the siege. See Dr. Green's
chapter in Vol. IV.
43 OfCharlestown.
•*9 Lived where the Horticultural Hall stands ; died in
England in 1791.
5° Died in England in 1779.
51 Sabine says " Deonezzan."
52 Widow of Richard ; died in England in 1800.
»3 See Vol. II. 392.
54 Marritd a daughter of Dr. Sylvester Gardiner. See
Vol. II. 268.
55 Merchant ; embarked in 1776 ; died in London in
1806 ; married daughter of Isaac Royall.
s& An eminent merchant ; died in Boston, in 1786. See
Vol. II. index.
57 H. C. 1747 ; embarked in 1776; died in England in
1816; married a daughter of Governor Shirley. His son,
Dr. Shirley Erving, died in Boston in 1813. See Vol. II.
P-539-
58 An eminent merchant ; died in Cambridge in 1785.
See Vol. 1 1. index.
59 Son of Wilfred.
60 Printer; partner of Mein. See Mr. Goddard's chap-
ter in Vol. II.
61 Estate settled by Joseph Pierce. Of his family there
is some account in Drake's Life of Knox, appendix.
Died in England in 1783.
62 Commanded the Loyal Irish Volunteers in Boston
during the siege.
63 See ante in this chapter, and Vol. II. index.
64 Estate settled by Nathaniel Gorham. Banished, 1778.
Perkins's Copley, 56 ; Heraldic Journal, iv. 98 ; Sabine,
i. 461 ; see also Vol. II. p. 558.
65 Son of Rev. Dr. Gay, of Hingham ; left with the
troops in 1776.
66 Son of Martin; H.C. 1775 ; went to New Brunswick.
67 Returned and restored to citizenship in 1789 ; was
grandfather of Capt. Marryat, the novelist.
68 Born in Boston, 1730; banished 1778; Major of
British army. See Perkins's Copley, 57.
<>9 Left with the troops in 1776; citizenship restored
in 1787 ; died in Boston in 1796 ; father of Governor Chris-
topher Gore.
70 Estate settled by Joseph Henderson. Perkins's
Copley, p. 68. See Harrison Gray Otis's defence of the
character of his grandfather, Harrison Gray, in Loring's
Boston Orators, p. 191.
71 Son of Harrison Gray.
72 See Sabine, i. 490 ; who gives a brother John Gray,
not to be confounded with John, the son of Harrison.
73 Brother of Joseph.
74 Died in Boston in 1807.
75 Citizenship restored in 1789 ; died in 1812.
76 Died at Boston in 1817.
77 Graduated at Harvard College, 1760; after some years
spent in Nova Scotia and England, he returned to Medford
in 1797, and died there in 1809.
78 Estate settled by Dr. Thomas Bulfinch. "An inven-
tory of the goods and effects found in the house of Joseph
Green in School Lane, improved by John Andrews," is
in the Mass. A rchives, " Royalists," i. 433. See his portrait
in Mr. Goddard's chapter in this volume.
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
179
79 Sheriff, died in Boston in 1795.
80 Lawyer; H. C. 1751 ; embarked with the troops
in 1776.
61 Commanded the " Dartmouth," one of the tea-ships
in 1773 ; proscribed in 1778.
82 Estate settled by John Winthrop. See Vol. II.
p. 343 ; Drake's Town of Roxbury, 408. The heirs of
Mrs. Hallowell, in whom was the fee, subsequently recov-
ered the estate. N. E. Hist, and Geneal. Reg., April,
1858, p. 72. His sons were Sir Benjamin Hallowell Carew,
and Ward Nicholas Boylston.
83 Estate settled by Zephion Thayer. He was Comp-
troller of the Customs He left with the troops in March,
1776: after the war he returned to America, and in 1792
lived in Batterymarch Street, but removed to Gardiner,
Me., in 1816, and died there in 1818. He was brother of
Benjamin.
84 Collector of Customs in 1768.
85 Son of Joseph.
S6 Of Uorchester; H. C. 1742.
8? Chief butcher to the British army during the siege.
His shop was on the south corner of Washington Street
and Harvard Place, opposite the old South. Drake's Land-
marks, p. 270. Died in Boston in 1813.
88 Printer; finally returned, and died at Newton.
89 Father of Hon. Joseph Howe, distinguished in
Canadian politics.
9° Estate settled by Edward Carnes. His property in-
cluded Shirley Hall in Roxbury, shown in the frontispiece
of Vol. II., and his wife was Governor Shirley's daughter.
He died in 1775-
91 Son of the Governor; partner of Thomas, Jr.; died
in Hngland in 1824.
9- Estate settled by Joshua Pico ; brother of the Gov-
ernor; died in Nova Scotia in 1799.
93 Governor Hutchinson's estate in Milton was sold in
1779 for .£38,038. Mass. Archives, ''Royalists," ii. 66.
Died in England in 1780.
9* Died in England in 1811 ; son of the Governor.
95 Died in Cambridge in 1788.
9<> Died in England in 1810.
97 Returned, and died at Milton in 1812.
9° Estate settled by Dr. Scollay. He graduated at Har-
vard College, 1763 ; left Boston with the troops in 1776 ; re-
turned in 1790; died in 1819.
99 Distiller ; died in London in 1809.
100 Died in New Brunswick in 1827.
101 Estate settled by Mungo Mackay. He died in Eng-
land in 1814.
«02 \Vas allowed to remain in Cambridge ; died in 1802.
103 Sabine gives it " Linkletter."
Iot Died in London in 1795 or 1796.
'°5 See Dr. Green's chapter in Vol. IV.
106 Returned, and died in Boston in 1798.
107 Esute settled by John Fenno. See Vol. II. p. 344;
Drake's Town of Roxbury, p. 416. His estate in Roxbury
was sold, June 1779, for ,£26,486. 6s. 3d. Mass. Archives^
"Royalists," ii 66. It comprised seventy-two acres. His
house in Boston was "next the south writing school,
adjoining on the Common." He was commissary of
prisoners in New York, and is charged with cruelty in his
treatment of them. There was a witticism current among
the British that he fed the dead and starved the living, —
alluding to his practice of charging for supplies to prison-
ers long after their death, and giving scant allowance to
others. Moore's Diary, ii. no. Died in England in 1781.
103 Died in England in 1789.
109 Son of John Lovell ; died in England in 1828.
110 The school-master. See Vol. II. index. Died in
Halifax in 1778.
111 Died at Halifax in 1776.
112 Died at New York in 1812.
113 Printer and bookbinder, opposite the Old South.
Died in Glasgow in 1788.
114 Her husband, Dr. William McKinstrey, died in the
harbor, before sailing, in March, 1776; she afterward re-
turned and died at Haverhill in 1786. See Sabine.
115 Died in New Brunswick in 1830.
115 Died in New Brunswick in 1804.
117 Customs officer of Portland ; but suffered his tribula-
tions in Boston in 1774. See Sabine.
118 Printer; he fled from Whig wrath as early as 1769.
See Mr. Goddard's chapter in Vol. II.
"9 Printer; went to Nova Scotia.
120 A New Hampshire minister, who left the American
camp after Bunker Hill and went into Boston ; preached
at Brattle Street Church and became a commissary. See
Sabine.
121 Sabine gives it " Mulcarty."
122 Sabine gives it " Mulball."
123 Of Rutland ; fled into Boston in 1774; left with the
British in 1776; died at St. John in 1794.
124 He lived at the lower corner of North and Centre
streets in a house still standing. His son of the same name
became a baronet. Drake's Landmarks, 153 ; Sabine, ii.
121.
I2s Son of Daniel Oliver; Lieut. -Governor; died in
Boston in 1774.
126 Died in England in i7gt.
127 Of Middleborough ; fled to Boston ; died in England
in 1822.
128 The last royal Lieut.-Governor; lived at " Elm-
wood," Cambridge, and in 1774, moved into Boston; left
with the troops; died in England in 1782.
129 Son of Andrew ; died at St. John, 1613. For the
Oliver family, see Vol. I. p. 580: II. 539.
13° Estate settled by William Bant. See chap. I. in
this volume. He died in the Isle of Jersey in 1804.
131 Became surgeon on the British side; died'in New
Brunswick in 1817.
132 See Mr. Goddard's and Dr. Brooks's chapters in this
volume.
133 Estate settled by Joseph Shed ; Commissioner of
Customs. His portrait is in the Hist. Soc. gallery. See
chap. I. in this volume. Left with the troops. Died iu
England in 1788.
134 Died in 1794.
»s Pastor of Old North Church. See Dr. McKenrie's
chapter in Vol. II.
136 The grandson of the first Sir William. He lived
where Otis Place now is. He was son of Col. Nathaniel
Sparhawk. the son-in-law of the first Sir William ; and
assumed the name, and was subsequently created baronet.
He married the daughter of Isaac Royall. He was the first
president of an association of Loyalists formed in London, in
1779, and was pensioned by the British government. See
Sabine, ii. 171. He died in London in 1876.
137 Died in Halifax in 1778.
138 Arrested in 1776: died in his home, on the site of
the Tremont House, in 1803.
139 Died in England in 1797.
140 Died in Boston in 1794.
141 Son of Lieut.-Governor Spencer Phips; colonel of a
troop of guards in Boston ; died in England in 1811.
142 Died in Halifax in 1817.
143 Comptroller-General of the Customs; embarked in
1776.
144 Driven into Boston from Worcester, and left with the
troops : and died in New Brunswick in 1789.
145 Son of preceding; died in England in 1838.
I4«> See Vol. II. 546, and Mr. Morse's chapter in Vol. IV.
Samuel Quincy, who succeeded Sewall as Solicitor-General,
was his cousin ; and when Quincy's younger brother, Josiah
the Patriot, rose to eminence, a natural disappointment in
the older son was used by Hutchinson and Sewall to
seduce him from the Patriot cause ; and thus he shared the
fortunes of his expatriated associates. An inventory of the
confiscated library of Samuel Quincy is given in Mass.
i8o
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Archives, " Royalists," i. 415. This estate was settled by
Thomas Crofts.
147 He was inactive in politics and remained in Boston.
148 Died in England in 1789.
149 He shot the boy Snider. See chap. I. of this volume.
Jso Graduated at Harvard College, 1762; took refuge in
Boston ; commissary to British troops in Charlestown ;
left with them, and died at Halifax in 1784. The grand-
father of the Rev. Drs. Geo. E. and Rufus Ellis.
Mi Collector at Salem ; left with the troops.
«2 Lived in Medford ; left in 1778; closely connected
with leading Boston Loyalists. See Brooks's Medford.
*53 Took refuge in Boston in 1774 ; left with the troops ;
and died in Nova Scotia in 1795.
'S4 Printer ; died in 1796.
155 Of Charlestown ; died in 1798 ; grandfather of James
Russell Lowell.
's6 Was in commercial life in Boston ; left with the
British ; and served under Cornwallis.
157 Took refuge in Boston from Haverhill ; left in 1775 ;
died in England in 1788.
158 Auctioneer; died in England in 1801.
'59 Fled from Cambridge and took refuge in Boston in
1774 ; returned from England to New Brunswick : and died
there in 1796.
160 Estate settled by John McLane ; died in London
in 1811.
»« Son of William.
162 The young son of William Sheaffe ; proteg^ of Lord
Percy; afterwards Sir Roger Hale Sheaffe, bart. ; revisited
Boston in 1788, 1792-93, 1803 and 1806; died at Edinburgh
1851.
163 Son of William ; died in Boston before 1793.
164 Deputy Collector of Customs. Sabine gives an
account of the family.
1(>S Died in Boston in 1834.
166 Went to Halifax ; returned, and died in Boston in
1801.
*W Commander of the Governor's guard; lived opposite
Eliot's Church in Hanover Street ; went to Halifax ; died
there in 1782.. His son Jonathan married a daughter of
Foster Hutchinson, and died in Halifax in 1809.
I<>8 Took refuge in Boston, and left with the troops.
Ib9 Of Charlestown ; died 1792.
I7<> Carted to the British lines at Rhode Island in 1777.
171 Proscribed in 1778 : returned, and died in Boston in
1816.
'72 Proscribed in 1778 : died in Quebec in 1806.
'73 Proscribed in 1778, but returned and settled in Dor-
chester, where he died in 1831.
174 Took refuge in Boston as a mandamus councillor,
and died in Nova Scotia in 1791.
'75 Assistant rector of King's Chapel.
«76 See Mr. Morse's chapter in Vol. IV.
'77 Proscribed in 1778; died in 1802.
178 Of Cambridge, in 1775; took refuge in Boston ; died
in England in 1797.
179 Brother of John : died in England in 1800.
130 Son of William ; died in England in 1843.
181 Died in England in 1816.
182 Rector of Trinity Church ; in 1776 went to England ;
returned in 1791 ; became rector of Christ Church, and
died in 1800; grandfather of Lynde M. Walter, founder of
the Boston Transcript.
183 Died in Boston in 1794.
184 Fled from Plymouth into Boston ; and was at Bun-
ker Hill on the British side.
•85 Died in Boston in 1794.
186 Died in Europe in 1799.
187 Attended in Boston the Provincials wounded and
made prisoners at Bunker Hill; died in Boston in 1779-
188 Died in England in 1778.
189 Accompanied the British in 1776; died in England
in 1781.
'9° Of Lancaster; left with the troops in 1776; died in
New Brunswick in 1789.
'9i Cut down " Liberty Tree." See Mr. Scudder's
chapter. Left with the British.
'92 Inspector-General of the Customs.
'93 Of Taunton ; took refuge in Boston ; and left in 1776.
'94 Brother of General John; took refuge in Boston;
embarked in 1776; died in 1784.
'95 Son of Edward ; joined the royal army in Boston in
>775> and became a colonel; died in New Brunswick in
1815. See Vol. I/, pp. 124, 551.
'S6 See Drake's Town of Roxbury, p. 256. Embarked
in 1776; died in London in 1790.
'97 General Winslow, whose portrait is given in Vol. II.
p. 123 ; considered by Sabine a ''prerogative man ; " died
in 1774 ; and his widow is said to have embarked with the
troops in March, 1776.
*9S Son of General John, of Plymouth ; took refuge in
Boston in 1774; embarked in 1776; died in Brooklyn in
1783.
AFTER THE EVACUATION. — Howe had be-
gun his embarkation early in the morning of
Sunday, March 17. By nine o'clock he with-
drew his guard from Charlestown, and soon
after the last boats put off from the wharves.
" From Penn's hill," writes Abigail Adams from
Braintree, March 17, 1775, "we have a view of
the largest fleet ever seen in America. You may
count upwards of a hundred and seventy sail.
They look like a forest." — Familiar Letters, 142.
The American advance pushed forward cau-
tiously down the Charlestown peninsula, and
found the works tenanted only by wooden sen-
tinels. A strong force embarked in boats on the
Charles and fell down the river, prepared to act
as might be required. A detachment from Rox-
bury under Colonel Learned entered the works
on the Neck, and, unopposed, unbarred the
gates. The entry was made under the immedi-
ate command of Putnam, who proceeded to seize
the principal posts. On the 2oth, the main body
of the troops entered,1 and the next day Wash-
ington, who still kept his headquarters at Cam-
bridge, issued the proclamation given (on next
page) in reduced fac-simile from a copy in the
library of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
An inventory of the stores, ordnance, and
vessels left by the British was made March 18
and 19, and is printed in the Siege of Boston,
p. 406. Some of the cannon are now to be seen
on Cambridge Common, about the Soldier's
Monument. Drake's Landmarks of Middlesex,
265.
Dr. John Warren's account of the condition
of the town is given in Loring's Hundred Boston
Orators, p. 161 ; and with a statement of the
strength of the works left by the British, in
Frothingham's Siege of Boston, 329; and in the
Life of Dr. John Warren, by his son Edward
Warren, Boston, 1873, which has a portrait, en-
1 Dr. John Warren's diary chronicles the action of the
enemy this same day : " March 2oth. This evening thjy
burn the castle and demolish it, by blowing up all the for-
tifications there. They leave not a building standing."
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. i8l
BVHIS EXCELLENCY
George Wafhington, Efq:
Captain Central and Commander in Chief of che Forces of the Thirteen United Colonies.
jr/HEREAS the Mntfenal Jrmy hn* .at,ando«i At TVwr o/BOSTON : and tl* Force, cf,he Umttd Cctotic,. under ry
Vr C omrnand. are m 'Pofftfon of tie fame .-
IH A V E therefore thought it neceflarjrfcr' tbe Prefervation «f Peace, good Order anj Difcipliae. to publifh the following
ORDERS, that no Pcifon offending tbeicin,. may plead Ignorance as an Lxcufc for their Mifconduct
ALL Officers and Soldiers are hereby ordered to live in the drifted Peace and Amity wich the Inhabitants , and no Inhabitant,
or other Perfon employed in his lawful Bufineis in th: "Town, is to be molefted in liis Perfon or Property on any Pretence what-
ever — If any Officer or Soldier (hall prefumc to (hike, imprifon. or othrrmfe ill-treat any of the Inhabitants, they may depend on
beinf; pumfhed with the utmoft Severity — And if any Officer ol Soldier (hall receive any Infult from any of the Inhabitants, he ii
to fecit Red/cfs, in a legal Way, and no other.
ANY Non-cammiiTioned Officer, Soldier, or others under my Command, who (hall be guilty of robbirg or plundering tnifTfTWm,
are to be immediately confined, and will be mod rigidly puniCbed — Ml Officers are therefore ordered to be very vigilant in die Difcomj
of facb offenders, and report their Names, and Ciunc. to the Commanding Officer to tbe Town, as fcoo. as may be.
THE Inhabitants-, and others, tie caned upon to make known to thr Qysrter-Mattcr General, or any of his Deputies, r!I f tore*
Wonging to tbe Mimfterial Army, thar maf be remaining or fecreted in the Town : Any Perfon or Perfoas »ha;evcr, t'ui 0:11
be known to conceal any of tbe Cud Stores, 01 appropriate them to his or their own Ufc, will be cooCdcicd as an Enemy of dniu.;s
and treated accordingly.
THE SeJefhnen. and other Mtgilrrates of the Town, are defired to return to the Commander in Chief, the Names of all or any Pirfoa
or Pcrfons ihey may fufpe<!> of being employed as Spies upon the Continental Army, that they may be dealt with accordingly.
ALL Officers 'of the Continental Army, aw enjoined to afliA the Civil Magi£b»tes in the Execution of their Duty, and to promote
Peace and good order. — Thef aie to prevent, as much ss puflilalc. the foidioiftom fKtjoemmg Tippling Houfr*. «od fljyUicg f«ora
their Pofls — Particular Nonce will be taken of fiich Officers as ant iMttrauvr tod roruli ia their Duty , and on the contrary, fuch only
who are aftive and mgilact, will be entitled to future Favor and Prcmouoo.
C WE. // aultf ity Raul at HeadQuarten in Camkridg*) tfc T-mttjfrfl Day of March, i 7 7 6>
graved from the painting, now owned by Dr.
John Collins Warren. It is Dr. John Warren's
statements upon which the affirmation is some-
times made that the redoubt on Bunker Hill,
found by the Americans, was one erected by
the British after they had levelled the earth-
works of June 17, 1775; but it seems probable,
as Frothingham, p. 331, shows, that the British
preserved, perhaps with modifications, the origi-
nal redoubt.
There seems to have been left behind a con-
siderable stock of the inhabitants' arms ; for a
memorandum on a letter, April 20, 1776, from
the Provincial Congress at Watertown, signed by
Wm. Sever, and asking of the selectmen a state-
ment on this point (now in the Charity-building
collection), has an endorsement on it: "1778
guns, 273 bayonets, 634 pistols, 38 blunderbuses,
— inhabitants' arms." This enumeration, how-
ever, may refer to the number of arms which had
been surrendered to Gage in April, 1775.
In the same collection is the following pa-
per : —
" Copy of ace. of losses the town sustained by the enemy.
Given in Dec. 17, 1777.
£, s. a.
Town stock of powder in the Powder House. 250 6 8
149 small arms and bayonets 745 o o
3 pr. pistols rioo
Town library ooo
King George the id picture, full 1
length
Gen Conway, do in Faneuil
Col. Barre1, do Hall . 133 6 8
Peter Faneuil, Esq , do. . .
Gov. Shirley, do
1140 13 4
The portraits of Conway and Barre were the
ones ordered by the town in their joy at the re-
peal of the Stamp Act.
John Adams (Familiar Letters, p. 216), speaks
of the portraits of Conway and Barre as by Rey-
nolds ; but the Life of Reynolds, by Leslie and
Tom Taylor, i. 257, makes no mention of them,
although Sir Joshua painted Barre more than
182
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Abigail Adams writes, March 31, 1776, to her
husband : " The town in general is left in a bet-
ter state than we expected. . . . Some individu-
als discovered a sense of honor and justice, and
have left the rent of the houses, in which they
were, for the owners, and the furniture unhurt,
or, if damaged, sufficient to make it good. Others
have committed abominable ravages. The man-
sion house of your president [Hancock] is safe
and the furniture unhurt ; while the house and
furniture of the Solicitor-General [Samuel Quin-
cy] have fallen a prey to their own merciless
party." — Familiar Letters, p. 149.
Greene succeeded Putnam for a short time ;
but upon Washington's leaving for New York
he placed Ward in command ; and in his instruc-
tions, April 4, 1776, he particularly enjoined upon
him to arrange some system of signals by which
to rouse the country in case of the approach of
a hostile fleet. Heath Papers, in 5 Mass. Hist.
Coll., iv. 4.
Mr. Samuel F. McCleary printed in the N. E.
Hist, and Geneal. Reg. (1876), vol. xxx. p. 380,
and in succeeding volumes, the records of the
Boston Committee of Correspondence, Inspec-
tion, and Safety, from May to November, 1776.
On the 1 7th of May the " Franklin," a small
craft under the command of an adventurous
Marbleheader, Captain Mugford, whom Ward
had commissioned, boldly attacked, just off the
harbor, a large armed ship — the "Hope" —
bringing supplies to the town, then supposed to
have a British garrison. British ships were still
in Nantasket Roads, and saw the engagement,
but failed to render any assistance ; and Mugford
carried his prize through the Broad Sound into
Boston. She had on board one hundred half-
barrels of powder, — a much heeded addition to
the Continental store. Two days later, the
" Franklin " grounded in trying to escape from
the harbor, and was attacked by boats from the
English fleet ; but they were repelled, at the cost,
however, of Mugford's life. See Force's Ameri-
can Archives, 4th ser. vi. 494-96, 532, 629 ; Gor-
don's American Revolution, ii. 264; Moore's
Diary of the American Revolution, i. 244.
A good deal of good service was now done
in this way by Captain Tucker, who intercepted
more than one important British supply-ship and
brought them into Boston, where his presence
was not unfamiliar throughout the war. He
had before this prepared some fireships at Ger-
mantown to send down among the fleet, but the
very day he was ready the fleet sailed. Familiar
Letters of John and Abigail Adams, p. 156 (April
14, 1776).
In June better organized efforts were made
to drive off a few ships of the British which still
lingered in Nantasket Roads. Detachments un-
der Colonels Marshall and Whitney, and some
artillery under Lieutenant Crafts, joined with
some Continental troops and coast guards, the
whole under the command of General Lincoln,
took post at commanding points in the lower
harbor and brought their guns to bear on the
" Commodore " frigate and the other attendant
vessels, which had recently been joined by a fleet
of transports with troops. The demonstration
caused them all soon to put to sea. Adams's
Familiar Letters, p. 185 ; Moore's Diary, \. 251.
The admiral had kept a detachment on the
lighthouse island to protect that structure ; but
when the fleet finally left, these men were taken
off, but not until they had laid a train by which
the tower was thrown down ; and it was not till
1783 that the present lighthouse was erected.
Shurtleff's Description of Boston, p. 572.
A day or two later the Continental brig
" Defence," of Connecticut, captured in the bay
two armed transports with Highlanders on board,
and brought them safely in under the newly
mounted guns at Nantasket. The " Defence "
was aided by a small privateer under Captain
Burk. {Familiar Letters of John Adams, p. 187.)
In July a fleet of the enemy hovered about the
bay for a week, but left without attempting hos-
tile acts. (Ibid. p. 201.) In September, "the 'Mil-
ford ' frigate rides triumphant in our bay, taking
vessels every day, and no Colony or Continental
vessel has yet attempted to hinder her. She
mounts but twenty-eight guns, and is one of the
fastest sailers in the British navy. They com-
plain we have not weighty metal enough, and I
suppose truly." — Ibid. p. 226.
A committee of the Provincial Congress, with
James Sullivan at the head, had soon been ap-
pointed to consider a plan for fortifying the
approaches to Boston by water ; and Sullivan was
also named first on a committee for carrying his
report into execution. Under General Lincoln's
direction the works at Fort Hill, on Dorchester
Heights, and on Noddle's Island were completed,
and hulks were sunk in the channel. The Con-
gress provided the cannon left by the enemy as
an armament for them. The letters written by
John Adams to his wife show his anxiety at the
delays in this work. In one of her replies, May
9, she says : " I believe Noddle's Island has been
done by subscription. Six hundred inhabitants
of the town meet every morning in the Town
House, from whence they march with fife and
drum, with Mr. Gordon, Mr. Skilman, and Mr.
Lothrop at their head, to the Long Wharf, where
they embark for the island ; and it comes to the
subscribers' turn to work two days in the week."
Familiar Letters, p. 171.
Later in the year, when Massachusetts an-
swered renewed calls for troops for the New
York campaign, Boston was left exposed to sud-
den incursions from the enemy. In December
the regiments in the harbor were prevailed upon
to continue their service, and additional regi-
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
ments were ordered to be raised for the same
service.
INDEPENDENCE DECLARED. — There was
published some years since in the (British)
United Service Journal an account of the way
Independence was first proclaimed in Boston,
written by a British officer, who in June, 1776,
had been captured on board a transport in the
bay, and was then held as a prisoner in the town.
He was invited, with other officers then on pa-
role, to the Town House, on the i8th of July.
" As we passed through the town," he says, "we
found it thronged; all were in their holiday suits;
every eye beamed with delight, and every tongue
was in rapid motion. The streets adjoining the
Couqcil Chamber were lined with detachments
of infantry tolerably equipped, while in front of
the jail [Court Street] artillery was drawn up,
the gunners with lighted matches. The crowd
opened a lane for us, and the troops gave us, as
we mounted the steps, the salute due to officers'
of our rank. . . . Exactly as the clock struck
one, Colonel [Thomas] Crafts, who occupied the
chair, rose and read aloud the Declaration. This
being finished, the gentlemen stood up, and each,
repeating the words as they were spoken by an
officer, swore to uphold the rights of his country.
Meanwhile the town clerk read from a balcony
the Declaration to the crowd ; at the close of
which a shout, begun in the hall, passed to the
streets, which rang with loud huzzas, the slow
and measured boom of cannon, and the rattle
of musketry. . . . There was a banquet in the
Council Chamber, where all the richer citizens
appeared ; large quantities of liquor were dis-
tributed among the mob ; and when night closed
in, darkness was dispelled by a general illumi-
nation."
The scene is also described by Mrs. Adams
in her letters, July 21, Familiar Letters, p. 204,
and in the New England Chronicle, July 25.
It was now in front of the old historic Bunch
of Grapes tavern, on the upper corner of State
and Kilby streets, that all portable signs of roy-
alty in the town, — such as the arms from the
Town House, the Court House, and the Custom
House, — were brought and thrown in a pile to
make a bonfire.
The first anniversary (July 4, 1777) of the
Declaration of Independence was celebrated
in Boston with great parade, a sermon by Dr.
Gordon before the Legislature, a public dinner,
and much booming of cannon. Moore's Diary,
i. 463.
A copy of the broadside Declaration of Inde-
pendence, attested in script, " A true copy, John
Hancock, Presid'-," is in Mass. Archives, cxlii. 23.
It is one of the copies sent to each of the States
by order of Congress, Jan. 18, 1777, and is
marked in print " Baltimore, in Maryland ;
printed by Mary Katharine Goddard." With it
is Hancock's letter transmitting it to the Massa-
chusetts authorities. There is in the Public Li-
brary another copy of the same broadside, on
which is written "Attest, Cha. Thomson, Secy.
A True Copy, John Hancock, Presid'." It is
not evident to which of the States it was sent, if
indeed it is one of those sent to the States.
GENERAL HEATH IN COMMAND. — In 1777
General Heath1 succeeded Ward in command.
His headquarters were in the house of Thomas
Russell, which was in Summer Street, about
where Otis Street is. ^Major Andrew Symmes
had the immediate charge of the garrison of the
town. During the summer an uncertainty as to
the destination of the British fleet, then preparing
to leave Newport, caused some uneasiness and
renewed vigilance, and precautions were taken
for alarming the country in case of impending
danger. (See order in fac-simile on next page).
Signals for announcing the approach of an ene-
my's ship to Hull, were arranged by the Council
Sept. 10, 1777, and they are given in the Mass.
Archives, cxlii. 105. Mrs. Adams describes the
fright : " All Boston was in confusion, packing
up and carting out of town household furniture,
military stores, goods, etc. Not less than a
thousand teams were employed on Friday and
Saturday." — Familiar Letters, p. 287.
It was during Heath's term of service here
in Boston that the army of Burgoyne, which had
surrendered at Saratoga in October, 1777, was
marched to Cambridge. The news of the sur-
render had preceded them, and was received
with illuminations, bonfires, and cannon. Moore's
Diary, \. 513. The provincial authorities had lost
no time in chartering a swift vessel to carry the
news to the Commissioners in Paris. The des-
patches were entrusted to Jonathan Loring Aus-
tin ; and after prayers had been said by Dr.
Chauncy in the old Brick Meeting-house, the
vessel sailed, and reached Nantes in safety in
November. Loring, Boston Orators, p. 174.
The English reached Prospect Hill Novem-
ber 6, and were put into barracks there. The
Hessians arrived the next day at Winter Hill,
and we're quartered there. General Burgoyne,
who entered Cambridge in a pelting storm at
the head of his troops, was lodged temporarily
at Bradish's tavern, now known as Porter's ; but
subsequently was quartered at the house oppo-
site Gore Hall, known as the Bishop's Palace.
1 A portrait of General Heath is owned by Mrs. G.
Brewer, of Boston. An old ova), engraved portrait of him
is marked " H William?, pinxt I. R. Smith, sculp."
There is a copy in the Historical Society's Library. Gen-
eral Heath's estate lay in Roxbury at the foot of Parker's
Hill, and is now bisected by Heath Street. Here, on the
easterly corner of that street and Bickford Avenue, the
homestead stood. It was demolished in 1843. Drake's
Ttnva of Roxbury, p. 386.
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
N\ . The British artillery was
\ V^L parked on Cambridge
\>A Common. General Rie-
>^ desel and his wife were
established in the Jona-
than Sewall house, on the
corner of Brattle and
Sparks streets. The
camps of the " Conven-
tion troops," as they
were called in allusion to
the terms of their condi-
tional surrender, were
guarded by Massachu-
setts militia, while the
officers signed a parole
not to pass beyond speci-
fied limits.
This document is re-
ferred to by Barry (iii.
146) as being in the pos-
session of J. W. Thorn-
ton, Esq., and as if it
were the original conven-
tion paper signed at Sar-
atoga by Burgoyne and
his officers. One sheet is sub-
scribed by Burgoyne and the Eng-
lish officers ; and the other by
Riedesel and the German officers.
Mr. Thornton put it into the great
Sanitary Fair held in Boston, with
the understanding that it should
be given to the Public Library if
$1000 were subscribed for the ob-
jects of the Fair ; and this being
done, the interesting document,
which was originally among the
Heath papers, passed in 1864 into
that depository.
The Convention troops proved
a rather turbulent set. The militia
were not disciplined, and encoun-
ters not infrequently occurred be-
tween the prisoners and their
guards. Some blood and even life
was lost ; and at last Colonel Da-
vid Henley, who was in com-
mand in Cambridge, was charged
by Burgoyne with cruelty and
unsoldierly conduct, and brought
to trial. Colonel Glover presided,
and Colonel William Tudor acted
as judge-advocate. Henley was
acquitted. He had been brigade-
major to Heath during the siege.
In the summer and autumn of
1778 apprehension arose that the
British might make an attempt to
rescue the prisoners by landing
near Boston ; and so by detach-
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 185
ments the Convention troops were sent under
guard into the interior of the State. The last of
them left on the I5th of October ; but some thirty
or forty of the worst characters were left behind
confined in the guardships in the harbor. In
November, as is well known, the prisoners were
marched to Virginia. See the authorities enu-
merated in Winsor's Readers' Handbook of the
Revolution, p. 149.
In November the Baron Steuben had arrived
at Portsmouth, eager to throw his influence and
P
skill into the American cause. Coming to Boston
he found the community elated over the capture
of Burgoyne, and addressed a letter at once to
Gates, " the conqueror of Burgoyne," commend-
ing himself to his attention. We cannot follow
him to Valley Forge, nor relate here the benefit
which came to the camp there from his devotion.
Late in the summer of 1778 the expedition
which was intended to drive out the British from
Newport, and with which Hancock had gone as
Major-General in command of the Massachu-
setts militia, came to nought. The French
fleet blockading the English had been scattered
in a gale ; and on returning to the blockade they
were not prevailed upon to assist in an attack,
but sailed for Boston, leaving Sullivan, who had
charge of the expedition, to extricate himself as
best he could. Arrived in Boston late in Au-
gust, the French repaired their vessels and
replenished their stores. Lafayette came to
Boston and endeavored to prevail upon the
French Admiral, D'Estaing, to remain on the
coast ; while Howe, following the French, had
come within the Capes with his fleet, as if eager
for a battle. The contingency was alarming,
and nine regiments of militia were ordered to
Boston ; but the danger passed when Howe
withdrew. Mrs. Adams, mentioning the hos-
pitalities which the French officers extended
on board their ships, adds : " I cannot help
saying that they have been neglected in the
town of Boston. Generals Heath and Hancock
VOL. III. — 24.
have done their part ; but very few, if any,
private families have any acquaintance with
them." (Familiar Letters, p. 342.) Hancock
entertained them at a " superb ball " in Concert
Hall, October 29. (Moore's Diary, ii. 88, 102.)
The French left for the West Indies in Novem-
ber, and the regiments went home.
GENERAL GATES IN COMMAND. — In the au-
tumn of 1778 (November 6) General Gates1 suc-
ceeded Heath in the command in Boston. He
came with his wife and a suite, and the people
welcomed him kindly. Here he continued till
the following spring; but his stay was not
altogether an agreeable one. William Palfrey
writes to General Greene in January, 1779, of
the condition of affairs during Gates's command
in Boston : " There seems to be a
coolness between Hancock and Gen-
eral Gates. Neither they nor their
ladies have visited each other. Gen-
eral G. seems not very well pleased
with his situation, and I believe wishes
<3%jlL. most heartily to return to his Sabine
fields. His family have been involved
in quarrels almost ever since
they have been in the place,
which bid fair to proceed to
such a length that the civil
authority thought proper to interpose. Mr.
Bob. Gates and Mr. [John] Carter have fought ;
but it proved a bloodless encounter." Sargent's
Loyalist Poetry, 160.
The duel thus referred to took place on the
last day of the year, in a pasture near the Rox-
bury Meeting-house. Gates missed Carter, and
Carter refused to fire.
THE PENOBSCOT EXPEDITION. — This was
seemingly the most formidable and actually the
most luckless expedition which Boston sent out
during the course of the war. There have been
various incidental accounts and illustrative con-
tributions, as detailed in Winsor's Readers'1 Hand-
book of the American Revolution, p. 208 ; but dur-
ing the present year the Weymouth Historical
Society has published The Original jfournal of
General Solomon Loi'ell, kept during the Penobscot
Expedition, 1779, with a Sketch of his Life, by
Gilbert Nash.
Lovell, as colonel of one of the Massachu-
setts regiments, had been at Dorchester Heights
in 1776. The next year he was made the rank-
ing officer of the
militia of the sea-
board, subordinate
to the general of
the department at Boston, — a position which
he retained during the war. In 1778 he had
1 Stuart's superb portrait of Gates is given in photo-
gravure in Mason's Stuart, p. 183.
1 86
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
commanded a portion of this militia in the
Rhode Island campaign of forty-seven days;
and in October following, upon him had de-
volved the command of the militia hastily
assembled at the apprehension of an attack
from the British fleet.
In June, 1779, a British force had taken pos-
session of a peninsula on Penobscot Bay, where
now Castine is, in order to prevent that region
being longer the resort of the active Boston and
Salem cruisers, which were preying upon the
British supply-ships as they approached the
coast. The Massachusetts authorities, with as-
sistance from New Hampshire, at once organ-
ized an expedition ; and, June 26, put Lovell in
command of twelve hundred militia and one
hundred artillery. The " Warren," a new ship
of thirty-two guns, and the " Providence," a
sloop of twelve guns, both Continental vessels,
were borrowed ; and others were chartered and
bought. Peleg Wadsworth, the adjutant-general
of the State, was placed second in command.
Paul Revere, then a lieut.-colonel, was put
in command of the artillery. The fleet dropped
clown to Nantasket Roads on the I5th of
July, and sailed on the igth. It consisted
of nineteen armed vessels, mounting three hun-
dred and twenty-four guns, manned by over
two thousand men, with over twenty transports,
— all commanded by Dudley Saltonstall, the
captain of the " Warren." After landing on the
Maine coast .and receiving some recruits from
York and Cumberland, of a dubious character,
and a few Penobscot Indians, they reached the
enemy's station on the 25th. The next day the
troops made in part a successful landing ; but
they were unsupported by the fleet. Two or
three weeks were consumed in bickerings be-
tween the Commodore and the General, with
right apparently on the side of Lovell ; when
a British fleet reinforced the enemy, and led
in an attack on the American armed vessels
and transports. The result was the destruc-
tion of the whole floating armament, and the
thorough dispersion of the land forces through
the neighboring wilderness. Lovell got back
to Boston about the twentieth of September.
A court of inquiry, with General Artemas
Ward as chairman, exonerated Lovell, and
blamed Saltonstall. Their report is in the
Massachusetts Archives, cxlv., and is printed by
Nash.
The Penobscot expedition-rolls are in /'< 7 •<>///-
tionary Rolls, xxxvii. 83; with a list of vessels
chartered for the service, p. 173, with orders,
etc., p. 187. Vol. xxxviii. gives other papers ; and
also xxxix. p. 113. Massachusetts Revolutionary
Rolls, xxviii. 58, gives the officers of the expe-
dition, and also the officers of the Boston regi-
ments, and two new regiments.
THE NAVAL SERVICE. — On Dec. n, 1776,
the Government of Massachusetts authorized
Mr. John Peck to build an armed vessel of six-
teen guns, of a new construction. She was built
in Boston, called the " Hazard," was brig-rigged,
and of peculiar
model. She had
a short but bril-
liant career, and
took many prizes,
some of them val-
uable. One was the British brig "Active," Cap-
tain Sims, of eighteen guns, sixteen swivels, and
one hundred men, captured March 16, 1779, off
St. Thomas, W. I., after a sharp action of thirty
minutes, during which the " Hazard " lost three
killed and five wounded, and the enemy thirti-en
killed and twenty wounded. She had also an
action with a British ship of fourteen guns and
eighty men, which, after several attempts to
board, sheered off. In these engagements sin.
was commanded by Captain John Foster Wil-
liams, who subsequently became celebrated as
the commander of the " Protector." The " Haz-
ard " was one of the unfortunate Penobsmt
expedition, and in August, 1779, was burr.ed
by her crew to prevent her falling into the. hands
of the enemy.
Mr. Peck, who modelled the "Ha/.ard,"
was the most scientific naval architect
whom the United Colonies had produced.
Among the vessels built by him during the
Revolution were the " Belisarius " and the
" Rattlesnake," noted for their stability and
swiftness. One hundred years ago it was
a common remark that to have a perfect
vessel it must have a Boston bottom and
Philadelphia sides. The "Belisarius" does
not appear on Emmons's Lists, but the " Rattle-
snake," a ship of twenty guns, one hundred and
eighty-five men, commanded by Mr. Clark in
1781, does. The British claim to have captured
a cruiser of the name ; but as there were no k-ss
than four schooners so named belonging to
Pennsylvania, and one from South Carolina, it
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.
I87
may have been one of them. Emmons, in his
usually accurate tables, says that the frigates
" Hancock " (32), and " Boston " (24), were built
in Boston, in 1776; but they were both built by
Stephen and Ralph Cross at their yard in New-
buryport, by order of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts, and only equipped in Boston.
The " Hancock " was launched July 5, 1776, the
day after the Declaration of Independence, and
before it had been noised abroad.
In March, 1777, Tucker was put in command
of the "Boston;" and on Feb. 17, 1778, he sailed
in her to convey John Adams to France on his
diplomatic mission.
On the Qth of November, 1776, Congress au-
thorized the purchasing or building of three
vessels of seventy-four guns, five of thirty-six
guns, one of eighteen guns, and one packet.
One of the seventy-fours, and the only vessel of
war ordered by the Continental Congress to be
built at Boston, was commenced in the yard of
Benjamin Goodwin, afterward known as Tilley's
Wharf, a short distance from Charlestown.
Thomas Cushing, afterward the Lieut.-Gov-
ernor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,
as the agent of the Government, took pos-
session of the dwelling-house, store, wharf, and
yard of Goodwin for the purpose of building
this ship. It is probable but little progress was
made upon her, as we find in the Journal of
Congress, July 25, 1777, —
" The Marine Committee having represented that the
extravagant prices now demanded for all kinds of material
used in shipbuilding, and the enormous wages required by
tradesmen and laborers, render the building of ships of war
already ordered by Congress, not only exceedingly expen-
sive, but also difficult to be accomplished at this time," etc.,
wherefore it was
" Resolved, That the Marine Committee be empowered
to put a stop to the building of such of the Continental
ships of war already ordered by this Congress to be built,
as they shall judge proper, and to resume the building of
them again when they shall find it consistent with the inter-
est of the United States to do so."
In 1784, the exigency having passed, the ship
was sold on the stocks by Thomas Russell, as
agent of the United States. The only seventy-
four launched was the " Alliance," built under
the superintendence of Paul Jones at Ports-
mouth, and presented to the French Government
in 1782, to replace the " Magnifique," lost in
Boston Harbor.
In September, 1777, James Sullivan writes
from Boston : " A ship arrived yesterday with
twelve thousand nine hundred bushels of salt,
and other goods, taken by the ' Tyrannicide,' a
Massachusetts brig. Several of our public vessels
have arrived within this day or two, from France
and Spain, with clothing, tents, and arms ; one
with ten thousand pounds sterling in value of
Dutch cordage. The stores imported by the
Massachusetts Board of War are immense."
There is in Massachusetts Archives, cxlii. 158,
a paper signed by leading Boston merchants,
agreeing to fit out two armed ships to protect
vessels coming in and going out of the port of
Boston. It is dated April 26, 1779.
In September, 1779, the two Continental fri-
gates, " Boston," Captain Tucker, and " Deane,"
Captain Nicholson, arrived, bringing as prizes
two British armed ships, with two hundred and
fifty prisoners. Other of their prizes had been
ordered to Philadelphia. Boston Gazette, Sept.
!3» I779> Independent Chronicle, Sept. 9, 1779.
In 1780 Tucker, rich as he supposed from
prize money, moved to Boston, and lived some-
what luxuriously for six years, in Fleet Street ;
when, meeting embarrassments in fortune, he
returned to Marblehead : so Sheppard says in
his Life of Samuel Tucker, 1868, — a perform-
ance of some value, but rather too jejune for an
octogenarian to write.
Massachusetts built in 1779 a twenty-gun
ship, the " Protector," and gave the command to
John Foster Williams, Boston-born, and one of
the most conspicuous of the enterprising sea-
rovers of the day. A recruiting office was
opened on Hancock's Wharf, and by dint of
daily parades with drum and fife a crew of two
hundred and thirty men was got together ; and
the ship sailed from Nantasket Roads the first
of April, 1780. Williams's first officer was a
Marshfield man, Captain George Little, the same
who twenty years later commanded the frigate
" Boston." The " Protector's " second lieuten-
ant was Joseph Cunningham of Boston. We
have an account of her cruise from her log, now
in the library of the New England Historical
and Genealogical Society ; from the Revolution-
ary Adventures of Ebenezer Fox of Roxbury, Bos-
ton, 1838; and from the Memoirs (MS.) of Cap-
tain Luther Little, who served on board as mid-
shipman and prize-master. She engaged, June
9, an English letter-of-marque, eleven hundred
tons, thirty-two guns, and after a severe fight
the enemy's ship blew up. The " Protector "
landed her sick on the coast of Maine, and came
shortly after back to Boston to refit. On this
second cruise, during which she sent one prize
at least into Boston, commanded by Luther Lit-
tle, she was overpowered off Nantucket by two
English cruisers and taken into New York.
Williams and George Little were carried to
England, where the former remained as a pris-
oner till the war closed ; while Little, bribing
a sentry, escaped to France. See list of " Pris-
oners Committed to the Old Mill Prison," in
N. E. Hist, and Geneal. Reg., July, 1865, p. 209.
There is much about American prisoners at
Forton during the Revolutionary War, in N. E.
Hist, and Geneal. Reg., 1876-79. Washington
appointed Williams to the command of the
revenue cutter "Massachusetts," in 1790; and in
i88
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
this office he died, at seventy, in June. 1814. N,
E. Hist, and Geneal. Keg., January, 1848.
After the defeat of Comte de Grasse in the
West Indies, in 1782, a section of his fleet, four-
teen sail, under Admiral Vaubiard, arrived in
Boston, Aug. ii, 1782 ; and one of his ships, the
" Magnifique," entering by the narrows, was
stranded on the bar at Lovell's Island, where
her ribs are still embedded in the sand. Many
attempts have been fruitlessly made to secure
treasure from the wreck. One attempt, made
forty or more years ago, gave no return except
specimens of very beautiful wood of which the
vessel was built. In July, 1859, another trial
yielded copper, lead, and cannon-shot in consid-
erable quantities. In 1868-69, when General
Foster of the United States Engineers was
widening the main ship-channel, his machines
brought up, from a depth of more than twenty
feet, large pieces of plank and oak timbers, which
were thought to be a part of the wreck. The
pilot under whose misdirection the vessel was
lost became the sexton of the New North Church,
and the wilful boys of the parish used to taunt
him by chalking this couplet on the meeting-
house door : —
" Don't you run this ship aslu.re
As you did the seventy-four."
(Shurtleff's Description of Boston, p. 552.) In
October Mrs. Adams writes : " The French fleet
still remain with us, and the British cruisers in-
sult them. More American vessels have been
captured since they have lain here than for a
year before." — Familiar Letters, p. 407.
The Provincial Congress of Massachusetts,
April 29, 1776, ordered the naval flag to be a
green pine-tree upon a white ground, with an in-
scription, "Appeal to Heaven." The earliest
representation of this emblematic pine-tree now
known is found in the vignette of a contempo-
rary French map, and is 're-engraved in Froth-
ingham's Siege of Boston, p. 262, and in Lossing's
Field-Book of the Revolution, \. 570.
In the autumn of 1776, by orders of the
council, the sloop " Freedom," commanded by
John Clouston, and the sloop " Republick,"
commanded by John Foster Williams, had been
ordered to Boston ; and one of these vessels, at
least as late as August of 1777, bore the pine-
tree flag, as the annexed bill shows.
The Editor has used in this section some
notes kindly furnished by Admiral George Henry
Preble, as well as this writer's exhaustive History
of the American Flag.
PART I.
CHAPTER I.
THE LAST FORTY YEARS OF TOWN GOVERNMENT,
1782-1822.
BY HENRY CABOT LODGE, PH.D.
~D ETWEEN the Treaty of Peace at Paris, which acknowledged American
-*— ^ Independence, and the change of local government in Boston from the
form of a town to that of a city, f6rty years elapsed. That period was to
Boston a season of growth and prosperity ; the former slow, the latter bril-
liant at times, and at times clouded by the storms of war which then shook
the civilized world. The heroic period in the history of the town in its
corporate capacity closed when Washington marched in at the head of his
army, and Lord Howe sailed out of Boston Harbor. In the years preced-
ing that event Boston had been the most important name in the long list of
English possessions. It had figured in the newspapers, in the conferences
of cabinets and the debates of Parliament, with unrivalled frequency. It
had lighted the flame of resistance, endured the first stroke of angry rulers,
and had witnessed the first disaster to the British arms. During the Revo-
lution, Boston — untouched after the first shock of war had passed away —
had her share of glory and suffering ; but she ceased to be the central point
of resistance, or to attract further the attention of England and Europe. In
the forty years which followed the close of the war the old town, as such,
took no memorable action, with one or two rare exceptions which will be
described in their place. During this period, therefore, the history of Bos-
ton is, in its most salient features, interwoven with that of national politics,
and, above all, with the fate of a great political party, which found here
some of its ablest and most steadfast leaders; and which here, too, pre-
served longer than anywhere else an almost unbroken ascendancy. The
history of the town, then, at this time is to a large extent the history of a
party and of the men who composed and led it. In those days subjects of
190 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
interest were few in the extreme. The fortunes of the Bostonians were in-
volved in commerce, enterprising, far reaching, and successful ; 1 but it may-
be fairly said, that outside of business and professional work the only intel-
lectual excitement was found in politics ; and to politics, consequently, all the
strongest and ablest men of the community turned their zealous attention.
To understand the history of Boston during the period included between
the dates placed at the head of this chapter, it is necessary, if we wish to
set in strong relief the characteristic features of the time, and not to wander
in a tangled maze of valueless details, to study the fortunes of the ruling
political party in the town. In that party, or in opposition to it, we must
sooner or later meet with every man of importance ; in their contests we
must deal with every question which affected the interests of the town as well
as those of the State or Nation ; and thus we cannot fail to comprehend the
general character of the life and society of that day and generation.
The peace of 1782 found Boston shorn of many of the attributes which
had made her the first among the towns of the English colonies in America.
The population, which before the war had numbered nearly twenty thousand,
sank at the time of the siege to six thousand, comprising only those abso-
lutely unable to get away ; and when peace came it had risen to but little
over twelve thousand. Military occupation, pestilence, and the flight of the
Tory party had done their work, and had more than decimated the people.
Commerce, the main support of the inhabitants, suffered severely in the war,
and had been only partially replaced by'the uncertain successes of the pri-
vateers. The young men had been drawn away to the army ; both State
and Confederacy were practically bankrupt ; and the disorganization conse-
quent upon seven years of civil war was great and disastrous. Boston was
brought face to face with this gloomy condition of her affairs when the long
strain of the Revolution was removed by the Treaty of Paris, and her
people, with characteristic energy, set to work at once to remedy their
misfortunes. Again the harbor was whitened with the sails of merchant
ships, once more the trades began to flourish with their old activity in shop
and ship-yard,2 and the old bustle and movement were seen anew in the
streets ; but there was much weary work to be done before the ravages of
war could be repaired. Ten years elapsed before the population reached
the point at which it stood prior to the Revolution ; and in that decade
both town and State had much to endure in settling the legacies always
bequeathed to a community by civil strife. The adjustment of social, finan-
cial, and political balances, after such a wrenching of the body politic, was
a slow and in some respects a harsh and trying process, and many years
passed before a condition of stable equilibrium was again attained.
The mere fact of revolution implies, of course, a rearrangement of
classes in any community to a greater or less extent. In the provincial
times, although the political system and theory of Massachusetts were demo-
1 [See Mr. H. A. Hill's chapter in Vol. IV. * [See the chapter on "Industries" in Vol.
— ED.] IV. — EJD.]
THE LAST FORTY YEARS OF TOWN GOVERNMENT. 191
cratic, there was a vigorous and powerful aristocracy holding all the ap-
pointed and many of the elective offices, and recognized as leaders'in public
affairs. As a rule, this provincial aristocracy, which had its headquarters
in Boston, was strongly in sympathy with the Crown, and abandoned the
country on the success of the Patriots, either in the great flight which took
place when Howe evacuated Boston, or singly, when opportunity offered.
Their estates were confiscated, and they themselves took refuge for the most
part in the northern provinces, and sometimes in England ; but wherever
they were their loyalty was remembered, and they were aided by the Eng-
lish Government.1 Here and there exceptions to this rule could, of course,
be found, — as notably in the case of John Hancock and the Quincys ;
although even in the latter family of Patriots one distinguished member was
a Tory, and went into exile in consequence.2. There were a few others of
this class who, while their sympathies were with England, managed to
preserve a judicious neutrality, and remained in their native town, suspected
by many, and stripped of all political power, but retaining their social posi-
tion, and after many years regaining some portion of their influence. These
remnants of the provincial aristocracy were at best but trifling, and new
men had ample openings in the great gaps which war had made. The new
men, of course, came ; and equally, of course, they were the leaders of the
successful Revolution. They were not, however, as commonly happens in
such cases, drawn from the class immediately below that which had been
overthrown. The country aristocracy, the squires and gentry of the small
towns and villages, unlike their brethren of the capital, had been as a rule
on the side of resistance to England, and had furnished most of the Revolu-
tionary leaders. When their battle was won, many of them came up from
their counties and settled in Boston, occupying the places of their banished
opponents, and not infrequently by cheap purchases becoming possessors
of the confiscated homes of the exiles. To this class, which, to borrow
a very famous name, may be not inaptly styled the Country party, be-
longed, for example, the Adamses and Fisher Ames from Norfolk, the
Prescotts from Middlesex, and the Sullivans from New Hampshire ; while
from Essex, most prolific of all, came the Parsonses, Pickerings, Lees, Jack-
sons, Cabots, Lowells, Grays, and Elbridge Gerry. These men and their
families rapidly filled the places left vacant in society by the old supporters
of the Crown, and, of course, already possessed the political power which
they had gained by the victories of the Revolution. This new aristocracy
maintained for many years the ascendancy in public affairs which had been
held by their predecessors, but their tenure, weakened by the ideas devel-
oped in the Revolution, was more precarious ; and although they dictated
the policy of the State for nearly half a century, their power as a class
broke down and disappeared before the rapid rise and spread of democracy
during the lifetime of the next generation.
1 [See Editorial Notes at the end of Mr. eral of the Province, a brother of Josiah Quincy,
Scudder's chapter in this volume. — ED.] Jr., the Patriot. There is a biography of him in
2 [This was Samuel Ouincy, Solicitor-Gen- the appendix to Curwtn's Journal. — ED.]
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
The Patriot party — the Whigs of the Revolution — triumphed so com-
pletely by the result of the war that they found themselves not only
masters of the field in 1782, but absolutely unopposed. In their own num-
JOHN ADAMS.1
bers future party divisions were in due time formed, and we can detect the
germ of those divisions, even before the peace, in the Constitutional Conven-
tion which met at Boston in I/So.2 The old chiefs as a rule leaned, as
1 [This cut, made by the kind permission of
the Hon. Charles Francis Adam.s, follows Stu-
art's portrait of the old statesman, taken in 1825,
a year before his death, in his eighty-ninth year.
See Mason's Stuart, p. 125. A portrait by Cop-
ley, showing him in court dress, painted in 1783,
was given to Harvard College in 1828 by W.
N. Boylston, is engraved in Adams's Works,
vol. v., and hangs in Memorial Hall, where is
another by J. Trumbull, given by Andrew Cragie
in 1794. Another by Stuart is owned by Mr. T.
Jefferson Coolidge, of Boston. There is in the
Historical Society's cabinet a copy, by Stuart
Newton, of Gilbert Stuart's portrait. See Pro-
ceedings, April, 1862, p. 3. The Boston Magazine,
February, 1784, has a full-face portrait of John
Adams, engraved by J. Norman. — ED.]
2 [See Mr. Charles Deane's valuable paper
on the connection of Judge Lowell with the
Declaration of Rights, in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc.,
THE LAST FORTY YEARS OF TOWN GOVERNMENT.
193
might be expected, to popular and democratic views ; but what was more
important, they belonged, like Sam Adams, to the class of minds which can
destroy or defend, but which cannot construct. The younger leaders, on
the other hand, belonged to the coming period of reconstruction, when a
new fabric of politics and society was to be built up, and were more con-
servative and less democratic than those whom they had followed in the
conflict with England. The first serious division of opinion in the Patriot
party grew out of the difficulties engendered by the war. The heaviest
burdens were financial. Debts, public and private, weighed severely upon
the State, and upon nearly every member of the community. General in-
solvency, in fact, prevailed. The war had drained the country of specie ;
the Continental paper was worthless, and that of the State not much better.
The scarcity of a decent circulating medium was so great that payments in
kind were legalized. To thinking men it was already obvious that a strong
central government, stability, order in the public finances, and a vigorous
administration, both State and National, were essential to drag the country
out of the chaos of floating debts, and knit once more the political bonds
almost dissolved by war. To effect such results was no easy matter. So-
ciety and public opinion had been grievously shaken, and old habits had
been loosened and weakened. As always happens in times of distress and
depression, there were many among the more ignorant of the community who
mistook effect for cause. They were poor and in debt ; and in the means
adopted by their creditors to collect debts through the usual legal machinery,
they believed they saw the source of their sufferings. The popular feeling
of discontent in the western part of the State, therefore, began as early as
1782 to express itself in resistance to law and to the courts. Matters went
on from bad to worse ; violence and force became more and more common ;
the power of the State was crippled ; and at last it all culminated in the
insurrection known in our history as Shays' Rebellion, which not only
threatened the existence of the Commonwealth, but shook to its foundations
the unstable fabric of the Confederacy. While the storm was gathering,
John Hancock, the popular hero and governor, not fancying the prospect
opening before the State, and the consequent difficulties and dangers likely
to beset the chief magistrate, took himself out of the way, and the younger
and more conservative element in politics elected James Bowdoin in his
stead. It was a fortunate choice in every way. Bowdoin was a wise, firm,
courageous man, perfectly ready to sacrifice popularity, if need be, to the
public good. He was warmly supported in Boston, as the principles and
objects of Shays and his followers were peculiarly obnoxious to a business
community. The alarm in the town was very great, for it looked as if their
contest for freedom was about to result in anarchy. The young men came
forward, armed themselves, and volunteered for service ; but the Governor's
firmness was all that was needed. General Lincoln, at the head of the mili-
April, 1874, p. 299; also Governor Bullock's admirable paper in the Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc.,
April 27, 1881. — ED.]
VOL. in. — 25.
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
tia, easily crushed the feeble mob gathered by Shays, whose followers were
entirely dispersed.1 Nevertheless the rioters represented, although in a
very extreme fashion, the general sentiment of the State, demoralized and
shaken by civil war, as was shown by the almost criminal delay of the lower
branch of the Legislature in sustaining the Governor in his efforts to main-
tain order, and by their reluctance to declare the insurgents in rebellion, — a
step forced upon them by the vigor of the Governor and Senate. This un-
happy condition of public opinion was still more strongly manifested at the
next election. The issue was made up between pardon and sympathy for
the rebels on the one side and just and salutary punishment on the other.
The conservative party, in favor of the latter course, put forward Bowdoin ;
while Hancock, who had been under shelter, now came forward once more
to catch the popular support as the advocate of mercy, which another better
and braver man had alone earned the right to dispense. Hancock had
chosen his time well. Popular feeling in the country districts was with the
insurgents, and Bowdoin was defeated ; although Boston, now thoroughly
in the hands of the younger and more conservative party, strongly sustained
him. Thus the new party of order and reconstruction started in Boston,
which continued to be its headquarters; and gradually extending its influ-
ence, first through the eastern towns and then to the west, came finally to
control the State.
The Shays Rebellion did more, however, than decide the elections in
Massachusetts. It was without doubt an efficient cause in promoting the
Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia, and in frightening the decrepit
and obstructive Congress of the Confederation. The adoption of the Con-
stitution, submitted by the delegates who met in Philadelphia, was an event
of national as well as local importance, for the adhesion of the great State
of Massachusetts was essential to success. Boston was the scene of the
protracted struggle in the Convention which was held to consider this
1 [The story of this insurrection enters into
the substance of all histories of Massachusetts,
but it has been amply told by G. R. Minot, in his
monograph, Insurrections in Massachusetts in
1786, published in 1788, and in a second edition
in 1810; and there are numerous refer-
ences to contemporary and other au-
thorities in a chapter on it in Barry's
Massachusetts, iii. ch. 6. See also Sar-
gent's Dealings with the Dead, No. 29,
and Holland's Western Massachusetts.
There is a volume in the Massachusetts
Archives on Shays' Insurrection. A
company of light infantry was raised in Boston
to act against the insurgents, Harrison Gray
Otis being made captain, with Thomas Russell
and John Gray as lieutenants. Boston liberally
supplied the means by which, in January, Gen-
eral Lincoln was put in command of forty-four
hundred men, and with these he marched from
Roxbury on the twenty-first.
When Bowdoin went to Cambridge to
review Brooks's troops, being then about
fifty-eight years old, he is described as
wearing a gray wig, cocked hat, white broad-
cloth coat and waistcoat, red small-clothes, and
black silk stockings. Sullivan's Public Men,
letter ii. Massachusetts Revolutionary Rolls, ix.
contains certificates of service in Shays' Rebel-
lion. — ED.]
THE LAST FORTY YEARS OF TOWN GOVERNMENT. 195
momentous question, first in Brattle-Street Church, still bearing the marks
of Washington's cannon, and later in the State House, and later still in
the meeting-house in Long Lane.1 The town was, of course, deeply
interested in the result, and strongly in favor of the Constitution; but
the details of the long conflict which ended in its adoption do not im-
mediately concern this history. The conservative elements, which had
JAMES BOWDOIN.2
begun to take a party shape in the Shays Rebellion, developed into a
strong and homogeneous body in favor of the Constitution. They had
an arduous battle to fight, and they fought it well. Against them were
arrayed all the sympathizers with the Shays Rebellion, besides many who
had actually taken part in it, and who, having tasted the sweets of incipient
anarchy, were averse to anything like strong government. There can be no
1 [See Vol. II. p. 513. — ED.]
2 [This cut follows a miniature by Copley,
painted about 1770, now owned by the Hon.
Robert C. Winthrop, Bowdoin's descendant.
See Perkins's Copley's Life and Paintings, p. 37.
There is a profile of Bowdoin in the Massachu-
setts Magazine, January, 1791. Mr. Winthrop
delivered at Bowdoin College an excellent ad-
dress on Bowdoin's life and character, which is
contained in his Speeches and in a later volume
on Bowdoin, Franklin, and Washington, from the
same gentleman. A privately printed edition,
with additions and notes of the Life and Services
of Bowdoin, bears date 1876.
196 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
doubt that at the outset public feeling and a majority of the Convention
were against the Constitution ; and, moreover, the great leaders of the Rev-
olutionary period, Hancock and Adams, were lukewarm. By ability in
debate, by perseverance, by managing and flattering Hancock,1 these dif-
ficulties were gradually overcome ; while to gain the earnest and active
support of Adams, the popular sentiment of Boston was invoked. The
mechanics of the town, under the lead of Paul Revere, held a great meeting
at the Green-Dragon Tavern,2 on Union Street, and passed resolutions in
favor of the Constitution. This was the voice of an oracle to which Adams
had often appealed in trying times, and its utterance now weighed with him,
and changed cool and critical approval to active support. Perhaps it de-
cided the fate of the Constitution ; for the great influence of Adams may
well have counted for much in a close majority of only nineteen votes.
The adoption of the Constitution by Massachusetts was a source of great
satisfaction to Boston,3 and was celebrated with great rejoicing. After the
ratification the members of the Convention dined together, toasts were
drunk, and the asperities of debate were forgotten for the moment in a
general sense of pleasure and relief. The next day a procession paraded
the streets. First came the representatives of agriculture ; then the trades ;
then the " Ship Federal Constitution," drawn by thirteen horses, with a crew
of thirteen men; then captains and seamen of merchant-vessels; and finally
more trades and the militia companies. The procession visited the houses
of the Boston delegates, fired salutes in front of the State House, while the
proceedings concluded with another great public dinner. In the evening an
old long-boat, named " The Old Confederation," was borne by another pro-
cession to the Common, and there burned amid the shouts of the people.
With intense interest Boston watched the adoption of the Constitution
by one State after another ; and we can see, in the newspapers, the rapid
development of the new party of reconstruction, the friends of the Con-
stitution, now known as Federalists, and the corresponding increase of
bitterness toward all who attempted to thwart a measure believed, in Boston
at least, to involve the future existence of the nation. The party which
thus took shape in the debates of the Constitutional Convention, and was
solidified and strengthened by victory, bent all its energies to selecting
senators and representatives who were well known to be strong friends of
1 [Referring to Hancock's proposition of 2 [See Vol. II. p. v. — ED.]
amendments, which perhaps saved the Consti- 8 [The debates of this convention, edited by
tution in the Convention, Rufus King writes to B. K. Peirce and Charles Hale, were published
General Knox : "Hancock will hereafter receive by the State in 1856 The "conciliatory resolu-
the universal support of Bowdoin's friends; and tions" introduced by Hancock were written by
we tell him that if Virginia does not unite, which Parsons (Memoir of Theophilus Parsons, 70),
is problematical, that he is considered as the only though their authorship has been claimed for
fair candidate for President." We all know the James Sullivan, and perhaps for others. Some
sequel : Virginia did unite ; and the Massachu- of Dr. Belknap's minutes of the debates are
setts Governor had a very bad attack of gout printed in Mass, ffist. Soc. Proc., March, 1858,
when the Virginian President visited Boston the p. 296. See Mr. Cummings's chapter in this
next year. See Amory's James Sullivan, i. 223. volume for an account of Benjamin Russell's
— ED.] reports. — ED.]
THE LAST FORTY YEARS OF TOWN GOVERNMENT.
I97
the new scheme. Flushed with their first triumph, the Federalists were
generally successful, and both senators were tried friends of the Constitu-
tion ; but their most signal victory was in the Boston District,1 where they
elected Fisher Ames,2 the young and eloquent champion of the Constitu-
tion, over Sam Adams, the veteran of the Revolution, the idol of the town,
but now suspected of coolness toward the great instrument which was des-
tined to be the corner-stone of a nation. The defeat of Adams by Ames
marked Boston as the great centre of New England Federalism.
The pleasure excited in Boston by the successful establishment of the
new government found an opportunity for expression when Washington,
— venerated and beloved, the mainstay of the Union, as he had been of
the Revolution, — made his visit to Massachusetts in the autumn of 1789.
The President, accompanied by the Vice-President, John Adams, was re-
ceived by the authorities on the outskirts of the town ; 3 and, having been
presented with an address, rode through the streets on a fine white horse,
escorted by a long procession,4 civil and military, and greeted on all sides
by the applause of a dense crowd. On arriving at the State House he
was conducted to a platform thrown out on the west side of the building,
1 [On April 12, John Adams, on his way to
New York to, become the first Vice-President
under the new Constitution, was escorted into
Boston from Roxbury by a troop of horse. Amid
the ringing of bells he was carried to Governor
Hancock's, where he lunched with the digni-
taries ; and then, amid another firing of cannon,
he went on his journey. — ED.]
2 [The son of Fisher Ames, Seth Ames, Esq.,
in making in 1854 a new edition of the works,
speeches, and correspondence of his father, con-
cluded that as his own recollections were of no
account, — he was but three years old at his fa-
ther's death, — he could not do better by way of
introduction than to give the kindly memoir by
Dr. Kirkland, and let the letters, then first printed,
stand as a supplement to it. In 1871 a new con-
tribution to the subject appeared in a volume of
Ames's Speeches in Congress, 1789-1796, edited
by Pelham W. Ames, including five speeches not
given in his works. Fisher Ames studied in the
office of William Tudor, in Boston, and though
his residence in the town was not a long one, he
represented it as part of the Suffolk District in
the First Congress. It was he, too, when Wash-
ington died, who was selected to pronounce a
eulogy before the Legislature in Boston. On his
own death, in 1808, his body was brought to
Boston, that Samuel Dexter might pronounce
an oration over it. Stuart's portrait of Ames is
owned by Mrs. John E. Lodge, of Boston, de-
scending to her from her grandfather, George
Cabot, Ames's friend. The likeness in Memo-
rial Hall, Cambridge, is a copy, not accounted
good, by Stuart, purchased of him in 1810.
Mason's Stuart, p. 1 27. A good engraving, by T.
Kelley, of Stuart's Fisher Ames appeared in the
Boston Monthly Magazine, January, 1826. He is
the subject of some further biographical details
in Loring's Hundred Boston Orators, p. 296.
— ED.]
8 [As Washington approached Boston he was
met by a troop of horse from Cambridge, and in
this town he tarried an hour, to visit the man-
sion which had been his headquarters at the
time of the siege. His chariot was now changed
for the saddle, and at the village green General
Brooks saluted him with a thousand militia in
line. — ED.]
4 [The procession was headed by the band of
the French fleet then in the harbor, which at the
same time united its salvos with those of the
Castle and the parading artillery companies ;
while Colonel Bradford, with five companies of
city troops, took the lead. It will be remembered
that before the start was made Washington was
kept waiting in the cold while an unseemly al-
tercation took place between the selectmen and
Sheriff Henderson, who was present represent-
ing the Governor, and assumed to control the
order of the march. The sheriff threatened "to
make a hole " through some of the town's officers,
and they waived their rights. They later, Dec.
12, 1789, wrote an indignant letter to Hancock,
who replied by sending Henderson's version of
the affair, in which he claimed to have acted
"according to his Excellency's orders," which
Hancock did not gainsay ; and to this the select-
men returned a temperate reply that they should
not presume to altercate with his Excellency,
etc. The letters are in the Charity Building
collect ton. — ED.]
198
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
and arranged, as we are informed, " to exhibit in a strong light the Man
of the People. " As Washington stood forth in all his simple majesty,
WASHINGTON.
cheers rang out, and an ode was sung in his honor by singers placed in a
triumphal arch close by. After this the procession broke up, and then for
1 [This cut follows the well known Boston
Athenaeum head by Stuart, now in the Art Mu-
seum. Washington gave the artist sittings in
the spring of 1796; it was never finished. This
picture was bought, after Stuart's death, of his
widow, and given to the Athenaeum, which also
owns the companion head of Mrs. Washington,
and a considerable portion of Washington's li-
brary. See Mason's Gilbert Stuart, 103, for a
photogravure of the original canvas. It is from
this that Stuart's later pictures of Washington
were reproduced. Replicas of Stuart's Washing-
ton, varying sometimes in accessories, are owned
in Boston : one by Chief-Justice Gray, formerly
the property of the Pinckney family, of South
Carolina; one painted for Jonathan Mason, now
owned by Mrs. William Appleton ; a copy of the
Athenaeum head, made in iSiofor Josiah Quincy,
now at Quincy; one belonging to the Hon. R.
C. Winthrop, formerly owned by the MacDon-
ald family ; one which was in a series of the first
five presidents of the United States, bought of
Col. George Gibbs's estate by Mr. T. Jefferson
Coolidge. These items are taken from a long
THE LAST FORTY YEARS OF TOWN GOVERNMENT.
199
several days there was a round of dinners and state visits. Washington
lived during his stay in Boston on the corner of Tremont and Court streets,
where a small and lofty tablet still commemorates his sojourn. The
most amusing incident of his visit, and the one most characteristic both
of the men and the times, was the little conflict between him and John
Hancock on a point of etiquette. Hancock, as the chief officer of what
he esteemed a sovereign State, undertook to regard Washington as a
sort of foreign potentate, who was bound to pay the first visit to the ruler
of the Commonwealth in which he found himself; while Washington took
the view that he was the superior officer of the Governor of Massachu-
setts, and that, as the head of the Union, Hancock was bound to visit
him first. Washington's sense of dignity, and of what was due to his
position, had often been exemplified, and the Governor's vanity and State
sovereignty were no match for it. Hancock prudently made the gout an
excuse for giving way; and having as fine a sense as the first Pitt of the
theatrical properties of his malady, appeared at Washington's door, swathed
in flannel, and was borne on men's shoulders to the President's apartments.
After this all went well, and Washington's visit not only drew out the really
vigorous personal loyalty of the people, but still further kindled the en-
enumeration of. copies, by himself, of Stuart's like-
nesses of Washington given by Mr. Mason.
A silhouette of Washington, taken during the
last years of his presidency, is now preserved in
the Mass. Hist. Society's cabinet, of which a
heliotype is given in their Proceedings, Decem-
ber, 1873.
The Historical Society also owns a copy of
C. W. Peak's full-length of Washington, fol-
lowing the copy owned by the Earl of Albe-
marle ; while other repetitions of Peale's work
are at present in the Smithsonian Institution, at
Versailles, and at the College of New Jersey.
Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1873-75, pp. 324, 350, 366,
375-77-
In 1851 there was published in Boston a pro-
file likeness of Washington, purporting to have
been taken in Boston, in 1776, by one Fullerton.
A pen-and-ink sketch, marked J. Hiller, 1794,
mentioned in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1874, p. 243,
is thought to have been drawn from this. It is
thought that a miniature likeness of Washington,
in plaster, mentioned as belonging to Mr. Melvin
Lord, in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., February, 1874,
p. 254, may have been taken in Boston or Cam-
bridge at the time of the siege.
During Washington's visit to Boston in 1789,
Gullagher, the painter, stealthily made a likeness
of the General, while he was at chapel ; but a day
or two later, following him to Portsmouth, he
made the likeness which is engraved in the Mass.
Hist. Soc. Proc., March, 1858, p. 309. The artist
sold his picture in Boston, by a raffle, and it
finally came into the possession of Dr. Belknap.
Harvard College had given its first doctorate of
laws to Washington in 1776; and at the request
of its corporation his likeness was painted in
1790 by Edward Savage, of which there is an
engraving by the artist, published in 1793. The
painting hangs in Memorial Hall.
Christ Church contains the first monument
ever erected to his memory. It is a bust in mar-
ble, of which photographs have recently been
taken by Notman at the instance of Mr. John C.
Ropes. Chantrey's statue of Washington, which
stands in the State House, was erected in 1828,
at a cost of $15,000. In this building are to be
seen fac-similes of the monumental stones erected
in the church at Brington, Northamptonshire, to
the memory of members of the Washington fam-
ily, who were long supposed to be ancestors of
George Washington, the reproductions having
been given by Earl Spencer to Charles Sumner,
and by him to the State, in 1861. Later investi-
gations of Colonel Joseph L. Chester have ren-
dered it almost certain that the American family
did not spring from this stock. See Herald and
Genealogist, London, and Heraldic Journal, Bos-
ton, 1866. The equestrian statue in the Public
Garden, modelled by Thomas Ball, of which an
engraving is given in Vol. IV. was not placed
in position till 1869, though begun some years
earlier.
It was after this visit of the General, in
1789, that the main thoroughfare into the town
from Roxbury was named for him; but the
various names that designated this street north
of Dover Street, were not displaced, and the
name applied to the whole length of it, till 1824.
— ED.]
200
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
thusiasm of Boston and of New England for the Union, and consequently
strengthened the hands of the Federalists.1
The assumption of the State debts by the new Federal government did
much to relieve the financial burdens of Massachusetts; and this, combined
with the sense of stability in public affairs, aroused the spirit of enterprise
everywhere, so that Boston became the centre of many great schemes for
public improvements, most of which came to nothing, although they served,
nevertheless, to encourage the business of the town. The population had
THE TRIUMPHAL ARCH."*
again reached the number which it had before the Revolution, and the new
era to which the war had been a prelude was fairly begun. As if to mark
the change which had set in, one of the most conspicuous characters of the
old period passed away at this time, by the death of John Hancock.3
There have been but few men in history who have achieved so much fame,
and whose names are so familiar, who at the same time really did so little,
and left so slight a trace of personal influence upon the times in which
they lived, as John Hancock. He was valuable chiefly from his pictur-
1 [Recollections of Washington's visit, by
General W. H. Sumner, are printed in the New
England Historical and Genealogical Register,
April, 1854, and April, 1860, p. 161. See also
Loring's Hundred Boston Orators, p. 114; Ed-
ward Everett's Mount Vernon Papers, 106. See
the account of the musical accompaniments in
the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop's Speeches and
Addresses, 1852-1867, p. 330. Some explana-
tions by Nathaniel Gorham upon the disturb-
ance between Hancock and Washington, printed
in Drake's Landmarks of Middlesex, p. 15, throw
a light upon the matter more favorable to Han-
cock. — ED.]
2 [This is a fac-simile of the view of this tri-
umphal arch, which appeared in the ATassachn-
setts Magazine, January, 1790. The erection
stretched with a triple arch across Washington
Street, just north of Court Street. The inscrip-
tion read : " To the man who unites all hearts."
— ED.]
3 [Hancock died Oct. 8, 1793, an<^ was buried
in the Granary burying-ground. See Shurtleff,
Description of Boston, p. 212. — ED.]
THE LAST FORTY YEARS OF TOWN GOVERNMENT.
2OI
esqueness. Everything about him is picturesque, from his bold, hand-
some signature,1 which gave him an assured immortality, to his fine house
which appears in the pictures of the day as the " Seat of His Excellency,
John Hancock." His position, wealth, and name made him valuable to
the real movers of the Revolution, when men of his stamp were almost
without exception on the side of the Crown ; and it was this which made
such a man as Sam Adams cling to and advance him, and which gave him
a factitious importance. Hancock was far from greatness ; indeed it is to
be feared that he was not much removed from being " the empty barrel,"
which is the epithet, tradition says, that the outspoken John Adams applied
to him.2 And yet he had real value after all. He was the Alcibiades, in a
certain way,, of the rebellious little Puritan town; and his display and gor-
geousness no doubt gratified the sober, hard-headed community which
put him at its head and kept him there. He stands out with a fine show
of lace and velvet and dramatic gout, a real aristocrat, shining and res-
plendent against the cold gray background of every-day life in the Boston
of the days after the Revolution, when the gay official society of the Prov-
ince had been swept away. At the side of his house he built a dining
hall, where he could assemble fifty or sixty guests ; and when his company
was gathered he would be borne or wheeled in, and with easy grace de-
1 [Few signatures are so well known as Han-
cock's ; and, as it happens, that oftenest seen,
attached to the Declar-
ation of Independence and
given in the text, is one of
the boldest and finest of
them all. Ordinarily his
signature, though preserv-
ing some of the character-
istics of that, lacked its
steadiness and regularity of
curve. That which is given
in Mr. Scudder's chapter,
and under his portrait in
Vol. IV. p. 5, is more near-
ly an average one. The
one annexed, taken from a
writing of his college days, shows some of the
possibilities of the later ones. — ED.]
2 [Yet see what John Adams says of him in
Works, x. 259-261 ; and the grandson, Charles
Francis Adams, not unfairly estimates the value
of Hancock to his times in the brief memoir of
VOL. III. — 26.
him prepared in 1876, which is printed in the
Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography,
i. 73. A favorable account is given in Sander-
son's Signers of the Declaration of Independence,
which has been by some attributed to John
Adams; but see John Adams's Works, ii. 416.
See also Tudor's Life of Otis, p. 261, and H. E.
Scudder's chapter in the present volume. — ED.]
2O2
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
THE HANCOCK HOUSE.1
light every one by his talk and finished manners. In society his pettiness,
peevishness, and narrowness would vanish, and his true value as a brilliant
1 [This cut follows a view of the house given
in the Massachusetts Magazine, July, 1789; also
given in heliotype in the Evacuation Memorial,
p. 99 Another view of it, twenty years later or
more, will be found in the view of upper Bea-
con Street, taken from the Common, in another
part of the present volume; and a still later view
(1825) is that in Snow's Boston, p. 325. Views
of it as it appeared at a later day, when but
a mere house-yard was left about it, are num-
erous. Hinton, United States, Boston, 1834, ii.
342 ; S. A. Drake's Landmarks, p. 339 ; S. G.
Drake's Boston, p. 68 1 ; King's Handbook of Bos-
ton, p. 12 ; Lossing's Field-book of the Revolution,
i. 507, etc.
In 1859 a strenuous effort was made in the
State Legislature to secure the passage of a bill
by which the Commonwealth should become the
owner of the house, using it for the residence of
its Governors, or for any other good purpose.
The Governor had raised the question of its
purchase in his message, and a committee with
the Hon. Edward G. Parker at its head had re-
commended that $100,000 be appropriated for
the purpose, and the heirs executed a bond to
sell for that sum. This report was printed in
the Boston newspapers, in February, 1859. The
Hon. Charles W. Upham, March 17, 1859, made
a strong appeal in the House of Representa-
tives, in urging the claims of Hancock on the
grateful recognition of the State, and this speech
is reported in the Boston Daily Advertiser, March
24, 1859. The project failed; and finally, on
Feb. 18, 1863, the land was sold to James M.
Beebe and Gardner Brewer, for $125,000, who
built for their own occupancy the two houses
now standing on the site. The mansion was re-
served for re-erection elsewhere; but this plan
likewise miscarried, and it was at last pulled
down and sold as old material. The knocker
of the front door was given to Dr. O. W. Holmes,
who put it on the door of the old Holmes house
in Cambridge. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., May,
1875, P- 38- There is a historical account, by
Arthur Gilman, of the Hancock house and its
founder, in the Atlantic Monthly, 1863, p. 692.
The house was built in 1737, by Thomas Han-
cock (see Vol. II. p. 519, for his portrait), of
whom there is an account by Alden Bradford, in
Hunfs Merchants' Magazine, i. 346; and who,
dying in 1764, left his mansion and the bulk of
his estate to his nephew, John Hancock. See
the genealogy in N. E. Hist, and Geneal. Reg.
ix. 352. There is no trace of a grant to war-
rant the use of the arms borne by John Hancock.
(Heraldic Journal, ii. 99.) For a time after he
resigned the presidency of Congress, Hancock
lived during the summer in Jamaica Plain, in a
cottage which stood just beyond the present resi-
dence of Mr. Moses Williams. The story goes
that he gave up his residence there because his
neighbor, William Gordon, the historical writer,
who was one of the overseers of Harvard Col-
lege, greatly offended Hancock by his severe
strictures on Hancock's neglect to settle his ac-
counts as treasurer of that institution. — ED.]
THE LAST FORTY YEARS OF TOWN GOVERNMENT. 203
and picturesque figure would come out. His death was but one of the
incidents which, as the old century hastened to its close, marked the change
which had fairly come. The old simplicity, as well as the old stateliness and
pomp, were alike slipping away. Those were the days when the gentry lived
in large houses, enclosed by handsome gardens, and amused themselves with
card parties, dancing parties, and weddings ; when there were no theatres,
and nothing in the way of relaxation except these little social festivities.
But the enemy was at the gates, — a great, hurrying, successful, driving
democracy. Brick blocks threatened the gardens ; the theatre came, des-
pite the august mandate of Governor Hancock; 1 the elaborate and stately
dress of the eighteenth century began to be pushed aside, first for grotesque
and then for plainer fashions ; 2 the little interests of provincial days began
to wane ; Unitarianism sapped the foundations of the stout old church of
Winthrop and Cotton ; 3 and the eager zest for intellectual excitement
poured itself into business and politics, the only channels then open, giv-
ing to the latter an intensity hardly to be appreciated in days when mental
resources are as numerous as they then were few. Boston was feeling the
effects of the revolution which had been "wrought by the War for Inde-
pendence, the first act of the mighty revolutionary drama just then reopen-
ing in Paris.
To this change and progress in society and in habits of life the French
Revolution gave of course a powerful impetus.4 The tidings from Paris
were received in this country at first with a universal burst of exultation,
which found as strong expression in Boston as anywhere. The success of
Dumouriez was the occasion of a great demonstration. A liberty pole was
raised,5 an ox roasted, and bread and wine distributed in State Street;
while Sam Adams, who had succeeded his old companion as Governor,
presided, with the French Consul, at a great civic banquet in Faneuil Hall.
The follies of the Parisian mob were rapidly adopted ; " Liberty and
Equality " was stamped on children's cakes ; and the sober merchants and
mechanics of Boston began to address each other as " citizen " Brown, and
" citizen " Smith. The ridiculous side of all this business would soon have
made itself felt among a people whose sense of humor was one of their
strongest characteristics ; but when the farce became tragedy, and freedom
was baptized in torrents of blood, and the gentle, timid, stupid king, known
to Americans only as a kind friend, was brought to the block, the enthu-
siasm rapidly subsided.6 Every one knows how the affairs of France were
dragged into our national politics for party purposes, with Democratic
societies and Jacobin clubs in their train, and the bitterness which came
1 [See the chapter on " The Drama," by 5 [The pole, sixty feet high, was raised, Jan.
Colonel Clapp, in Vol. IV. — ED.] 24, 1793, in the area then named, and since
'2 [See Mr. J. P. Quincy's chapter in Vol. called, Liberty Square. The ox was roasted on
IV. — ED.] Copp's Hill, and the viands were served on
3 [See Dr. Peabody's chapter in the present tables in State Street, stretching from the Old
volume. — ED.] State House to near Kilby Street. — ED.]
4 [See its effect on the press, noted in Mr. 6 [See Mr. J. P. Quincy's chapter in Vol.
Cummings's chapter in this volume. — ED.] IV. p. n. — ED.]
204 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
from them ;. but all this gained little foothold in Boston, where the insults
of Genet roused general indignation, and the attitude of Washington toward
the insolent Frenchman found hearty support. But fidelity to Washington
and to the Federalist party was about to encounter a much severer strain.
The war with England was so recent that it was hazardous to make any
'treaty with that country, and to carry through such a treaty as was actually
made was a task for which Washington alone was capable. The Jay treaty,
— which even Hamilton is said to have called, in the first moment of irrita-
tion, " an old woman's treaty " on the one side ; and which Charles Fox,
with all his liberalism, thought unfavorable to England on the other, —
was received in America with a cry of rage so general that it seemed uni-
versal. In Boston a popular meeting l was held, and Democratic leaders
indulged in vehement and acceptable denunciation. Riots broke out of a
rather ugly character, which Governor Adams, blinded by prejudice, refused
to repress ; 2 and the excellent Mr. Jay was hung and burned in effigy, to the
perfect satisfaction of the mob. The Federalists were stunned. Many of
them openly condemned the treaty, while only the very coolest heads
among them believed in sustaining the administration. Gradually, however,
the leaders rallied. The Boston Chamber of Commerce passed resolutions
in support of the President ; reaction began ; the stern, calm replies of
Washington checked the tide of angry passion, and men at last began to
see, especially in a business community, that the treaty, even if not the best
possible, was necessary and valuable, and that the fortunes of the young
nation could not be entangled with those of the mad French Republic.
Boston was once more Federalist, and the stormy gust of anger had blown
over.3
The growth of the Federalist party was shown when Sam Adams re-
tired from public life, by the choice of Increase Sumner4 as his succes-
sor. Governor Sum-
ner was an ardent sup-
porter of John Adams,
then Just beSinning his
eventful administra-
tion, and the troubles with France which ensued awakened deep indignation
in Boston. Sumner's course drew out the most violent attacks, but he
was re-elected by an overwhelming majority. The fortunes of the Feder-
1 [At a town-meeting convened in Boston to Ames which carried the House of Representa-
consider it but one defender of it spoke. The lives into measures sustaining it. This, the most
selectmen transmitted to the President their Res- famous of his speeches, is in his Works, and in
olutions of disapproval, and drew from Wash- the later Speeches, where an interesting note on
ington a dignified reply. Sullivan's Public Men, it is prefixed. — ED.]
p. 96. See further, on the opposition to Jay's * [Increase Sumner was born in Roxbury.
treaty in Boston, in Loring's Hundred Boston See a memoir and genealogy in N. E. Hist, and
Orators, p. 307. Harrison Gray Otis at this time Geneal. Reg., April, 1854 ; also Genealogy of the
made his first political speech. — ED.] Sumner Family, by W. S. Appleton, 1880 ; Gen-
2 Wells's Life of S. Adams, iii. 351. eral W. H. Sumner's History of East Boston ; and
8 [It was the masterly speech of Fisher Bridgman's Pilgrims of Boston. — ED.]
THE LAST FORTY YEARS OF TOWN GOVERNMENT. 205
alists were at their highest point, and Moses Gill, the Lieut.-Governor,
whom the death of Sumner left at the head of the government, was suc-
ceeded by Caleb Strong,1 an ex-senator and ,
one of the stanchest of Federalists. But Sr/
even in the midst of their success the hour * ' s
of their downfall was at hand. The admin- /y
istration of John Adams was torn with fierce *S
internal dissension, and the President and the leaders in New England
were hopelessly estranged. But although many of the chiefs in Boston
drew off from the President, the clans
stood by him and gave him the vote
of Massachusetts. It proved a use-
less loyalty. The Federalists fell
from power, and the new century
opened with the accession of Jefferson, — an event which both leaders and
followers in Boston had brought themselves to believe would be little else
than the coming of a Marat or a Robespierre. It is hardly necessary to say
that nothing of this sort happened, but that on the contrary a period of
prosperity, for which the short-lived peace of Amiens opened the way, be-
gan, as unequalled as it was unexpected. This prosperity took the form
of maritime commerce, and poured its riches into the lap of Boston, con-
spicuously among all the seaports.2 At the same time, of course, all the
country throve, although the great advance was most apparent among the
merchants of Boston and New York and the seafaring population of New
England. When men are making money and prospering it is not easy to
awaken among them great political enthusiasm, nor is it easy to convince
them that the administration under which they have succeeded is a bad
one ; but this was not the case with the leaders. Nothing could check their
deadly hatred of Jefferson, which increased as they saw their own power
decline and that of the Government wax strong. As the conviction forced
itself upon their minds that the sceptre of government had passed finally to
the South, before whom a divided North was helpless, they struggled vainly
against fate ; and the bitterness of party, so marked in the first decade of
the century, found its origin in the years of Jefferson's first term, when
peace and prosperity reigned throughout the country. Like the Whig party
in England after the coalition, when they were called to face Pitt and his vast
majorities, the thin ranks of the Federalists were still further weakened by
the internal dissensions growing out of the sorry strifes of the Adams admin-
istration. These quarrels had been allayed by defeat ; but they were only
partially healed, and were soon to bear bitter fruit. Of all this Boston was
of course the centre ; and when the annexation of Louisiana roused the
Federalists to desperation, it was in Boston that a meeting was to be held
at which Hamilton should be present, and where the schemes of secession,
1 [An engraving, after Stuart's portrait, will 2 [See Mr. H. A. Hill's chapter in Vol. IV.
be found in J/<w. //&/. Sor. Proc., i. 290. — En.] — ED.]
2O6
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
which the New England leaders had been seriously discussing under their
breath, should find expression and obtain a decision on their merits. The
HAMILTON.1
good sense of some of the leaders contributed with other causes to prevent
the occurrence of this meeting; but had there been no other obstacle, the
1 [This statue, cut in granite, designed by Island of Nevis, West Indies, n January, 1757;
Rimmer, and given to the city in 1865 by Tho- died in New York, 12 July, 1804." "Orator,
mas Lee, stands in Commonwealth Avenue. It writer, soldier, jurist, financier. Although his
is inscribed, " Alexander Hamilton, born in the particular province was the treasury, his genius
THE LAST FORTY YEARS OF TOWN GOVERNMENT. 207
death of Hamilton would have sufficed to cause postponement, if nothing
else. The loss of that great man was peculiarly felt in Boston, where almost
every man of note was one of his devoted followers, and where Federalism
had struck its roots deeper and clung with a greater tenacity than anywhere
else. In Boston Hamilton's death was deeply mourned. There the money
— a large sum for those days — was raised to buy his lands and relieve the
necessities of his family ; and there the first statue of later times was raised
to the great Secretary, commemorating alike his genius and the enduring
and faithful Federalism of the old town in the years when the power of the
Democracy seemed universal.
In this dark hour the Federalists were, indeed, nearly extinct, and when
Massachusetts in 1804 gave her electoral vote to Jefferson it seemed as if
the end could not be far distant. In fact the Federalist party would soon
have perished utterly had it not been for the amazing blunders of Jefferson's
second term, which gave the party a new lease of life and a vigorous and
partially successful existence. This revival had not begun when an incident
occurred, familiar to all who know the history of Boston, and which forcibly
illustrates the violent party divisions of the town. This was the famous
shooting of young Austin by Thomas Selfridge, — the former a Democrat,
the latter a Federalist. The story of the death of Austin and the con-
sequent trial of Selfridge are told in this History by another hand,1 and
do not need repetition here. The affair was made a party question ; the
newspapers were full of flings at Federalist murders and their impunity,
and the talk, criticism, and invective connected with it give a vivid picture
of the heated politics of Boston at that time. But the fervor of partisan
feeling was soon to glow with a still fiercer heat, owing to the course of the
world's history, in which the United States — the only neutral nation and still
shackled by colonial feelings — was the foot-ball of the two great contending
forces, Napoleon Bonaparte and the English Government. Into the stream
of these mighty events, which are world-wide in their scope, the fortunes
of Boston were strongly drawn. The renewal of hostilities by Napoleon had
thrown the trade of all nations, and particularly that of England, the dom-
inant power of the commercial world, into confusion. From this disorder
the United States, as the only neutral with a strong merchant-marine, reaped
a rich harvest, the fruits of which fell of course largely to New England,
and therefore to Boston. It was the golden era of the American merchant-
service, in which much of the best ability and the most daring enterprise
were concentrated. Always alert and flushed with success, the New Eng-
land sea-captains and merchants of Boston took quick advantage of the
troubles of Europe to engross rapidly the carrying trade of the world,
pervaded the whole administration of Washing- plaster model of it is now preserved in Albany,
ton." The first marble statue ever erected in Mag. of Amer. Hist., 1881, p. 466.
America is said to have been one of Hamilton, by l [See the chapter in Vol. IV. on "The Bench
Ball Hughes the Boston sculptor, which stood and Bar," by Mr. John T. Morse, Jr. Dr. J. C.
in the Merchants' Exchange in New York, and Warren was called to dress the wounds. See
was destroyed in the fire of 1835. The original Life of J. C. Warren, i. 67. — ED.]
2O8 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
and to heap up handsome fortunes from its enormous profits. We may
see all this energy, courage, and enterprise depicted in the now almost
forgotten voyages of Cleaveland and Delano, and learn how strong and
true the genius for the sea is in the New England race.1 But we can
also see there the dark side of the picture ; not merely the normal dan-
gers and hardships, but the insult and pillage inflicted by French and
English, and the helpless, manly wrath and indignation of the Amer-
ican seamen. Our success and prosperity after the outbreak of war in
Europe was in truth too obvious, and soon aroused the unsleeping jealousy
of England. Seizures began to be made by British cruisers ; then came
unwarrantable condemnations in the British admiralty courts ; and then op-
pressive Orders in Council. The first sensation was one of angry pride and
keen disappointment at interference with our apparently boundless sources
of profit. Sharp remonstrances and resolutions went out from Boston to
spur the lagging Executive. The Federalist leaders, who regarded Eng-
land as the bulwark of civilization against the all-destroying French Revo-
lution personified in Napoleon, were overborne ; and, while reprobating
these violent measures in secret, seemed about to lose their last hold upon
the people, and were forced to see their Governor, Caleb Strong, replaced by
a leading Democrat, James Sullivan.2
They were properly helpless before
the righteous indignation which blazed
up more fiercely than ever when the English, not content with despoiling
our merchant-vessels, fired upon the national flag flying from a national
ship.3 If Mr. Jefferson had at that supreme moment declared war and ap-
pealed to the country, he would have had the cordial support of the mass
of the people not only in New England but in Boston itself; but it was
not to be. The President faltered as the Federalists rallied and renewed
their attack, fell back on his preposterous theories of commercial warfare,
well suited to .his timidity and love of shuffling, and forced the celebrated
embargo through both Houses of Congress. The support of New England
in the trying times which were at hand was lost to the administration, and
the political game in that important section of the country was once more
in the hands of those Federalist chiefs whose headquarters were at Boston.
The Federalism of Boston had in fact remained steady in every trial, al-
though there was a moment when Jefferson might have sapped its strength.
It had been heard in Washington for years through the eloquent lips of
1 [See Mr. H. A. Hill's chapter in Vol. IV. and principles of the Federalists better known,
— ED.] he gave his book the greater latitude of familiar
2 [Engravings of Stuart's portrait of James letters. In 1847 his son reissued it, much en-
Sullivan can be found in T. C. Amory's Life of larged. William Sullivan was born in 1774. It
Governor Sullivan, and in Mass. Hist. Soc. Prof., i. was he who said : " Dignified civility, based upon
In 1834 it fell to the lot of William Sullivan, self-respect, is a gentleman's weapon and de-
the son of Governor Sullivan, who had taken fence." William Sullivan died in 1839. See
the opposite side in politics, to publish his Pub- Loring's Hundred Boston Orators, p. 317. — ED.]
lie Men of the Revolution and the period im- 8 [John Lowell in Peace without Dishonor, IVar
mediately following; and to make the motives without Hope, tried to allay the excitement. — ED.]
THE LAST FORTY YEARS OF TOWN GOVERNMENT. 209
Josiah Quincy,1 whose voice now rose clearer and stronger than ever, trumpet-
tongued against the embargo policy. The defection of John Quincy Adams
on this same measure gave the town another strong and outspoken repre-
sentative in the Senate in the person of James Lloyd, a leading merchant;
and thus equipped in Washington, Boston faced the impending troubles.
So bitter was the feeling against England, so strong the sense of
wounded national pride, that even the embargo was received in Boston
at first with silent submission ; but its operation told so severely upon
both town and State that hostility to the administration rapidly deepened
and strengthened. We can now hardly realize the effect of this measure
upon Boston ; but one fact lets in a flood of light. The tonnage of the
United States in 1807 was, in round numbers, eight hundred and fifty thou-
sand tons, and of this three hundred and ten thousand tons belonged to
Massachusetts alone. The total cessation of commerce fell therefore upon
Boston with blighting effect. Her merchant-ships rotted at the wharves, or
were hauled up and dismantled. The busy ship-yards were still and silent,
and all who gained their living by them were thrown out of work.2 The
fisheries were abandoned and agriculture was distressed. If in Philadelphia
seamen marched in large bodies to the City Hall for relief, we can
imagine what the condition of the seafaring population must have been in
Boston. Ruin threatened the merchants, and poverty stared the laboring
classes in the face. Gradually all this began to tell upon the temper of the
people ; riots and insurrections were feared by men of all parties ; and the
Federalists now found willing listeners when they pointed out to a people
naturally brave and ready to fight, that the injuries inflicted by England
were trifling in comparison with the total destruction of trade caused by
their own Government; that the embargo had not as usual a limitation, but
might become permanent; and that, however it might be disguised, the only
nation really benefited by the embargo was the French. Slowly political
power returned to the party constantly in opposition to Jefferson and all
1 [Of Mr. Quincy his daughter says: "The of Representatives he was brought before the
desertion of his friends and the violence of his people, and made speaker ; and in the conven-
opponents were great elements of his success, tion held on the separation of Maine, he became
He was a Federalist from principle, but too in- justly appreciated, and would have been run for
dependent to join in party measures. When governor the next year had he not accepted the
in Congress, some of the leading Federalists did office of municipal judge." Mr. Quincy's political
not support him as he could have wished. They conduct can be traced only too scantily in Ed-
would not believe that their representative in mund Quincy's Life of his father. Something
Washington could have clearer views of the of his Congressional career, with a fac-simile of
policy of the administration than they had, sit- "Josiah the First," a monarchical squib of which
ting in their insurance offices in Boston. . . . his opponents thought him a fit subject, is given
But he remained true to the Federalists, and in Lossing's Field-book of the War of 1812. The
they rewarded him in 1820 by striking his name Congressional documents which he gathered dur-
from their list of senators without giving him ing his service at Washington are now in the
the least intimation that they intended doing so. Public Library, and serve in part to make the
He felt this deeply, but he went to the caucus collection of United States documents in that
and spoke in favor of the ticket from which his library what is presumably the best in existence,
name had been struck. This made him gener- — ED.]
ally popular, and by being put into the House '- [See Mr. Hill's chapter in Vol. IV. — En.]
VOL. in. — 27.
210 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
his works. Resistance began to crop out on all sides. Pickering attacked
Governor Sullivan in a violent pamphlet; Samuel Dexter argued in court
against the constitutionality of the embargo, and juries refused to convict
for infractions of the hated law. The Federalists carried the Legislature,
and passed resolutions denouncing the embargo and questioning its con-
stitutionality; while the town of Boston instructed its representatives, in
town-meeting, to resist the embargo in terms which recalled the days of
Sam Adams and the Port Bill, and which induced John Randolph to
remind Jefferson of the fate of Lord North in a former difficulty with
the Puritan town. Then it was that John Quincy Adams thought treason
and secession were afoot in Boston, and warned the administration of its
peril. He was mistaken as to the extent of the danger, for there was no
treason, and nothing worse than ominous whisperings of secession. The
ripeness of the times and of the public in Boston for desperate measures
was sufficient to excite such suspicions ; but the Federalists did not aim at
violence. In the state of society then existing, in the opportunity offered,
and in the condition of the times, it is a matter of wonder that passions
were so controlled ; for it is not easy to appreciate now the mental concen-
tration in that day and generation. There was no art, no literature, no
science ; the only great branch of business was laid low by the embargo ;
there were none of the thousand and one interests which now divide and
absorb our energy and activity. Absolutely the only source of intellectual
excitement was politics ; and to this were confined the mental forces of a
small, vigorous, cultivated, and aristocratic society, which flung itself into
politics with its whole heart and soul. They were a convivial race, these
Federalist leaders in Boston, and were wont to dine together at three o'clock ;
and at five, when the ladies left the room, Madeira and politics flowed with-
out stint until midnight and after. It is small wonder that their politics
were heated, that ex-senators and governors bandied harsh words in the
offices of State Street or demanded explanations in the newspapers, and
that the traditional feuds and bitterness of 1808, although softened and ap-
parently forgotten, have survived in Boston among those who inherit them
even to the present day.
With matters in this state, the passage of the enforcing act aroused
such anger, the attitude of New England became so menacing, that the
Northern Democrats quailed; and led by such " pseudo Republicans" as
Joseph Story, who were not ready to sacrifice their homes to Mr. Jefferson's
theories, they repealed the embargo. There was a great sigh of relief; and
when the Erskine arrangement was made, the sails of the merchant-ships
again whitened the harbor of Boston. The more reasonable policy of Mr.
Madison was only temporary, however, in its effects, and was soon replaced
by vacillation and by labyrinthine complications, into which it is unneces-
sary to enter. The relaxation, however, sufficed to loosen the hold of the
Federalists, and Governor Gore was replaced by Elbridge Gerry, whose
administration was in itself enough to strengthen and give victory once
THE LAST FORTY YEARS OF TOWN GOVERNMENT. 211
more to his opponents. He denounced in a message the publications of the
Federal press, which were, indeed, vituperative and coarse to a high degree,
especially in Boston ; and he endeavored to bring ^y
in the power of the government to punish the Jr
aggressors. He also supported a plan of arrang-
ing election districts for partisan purposes, which
was so bad, and at that time so unheard of, that it
gave a new word to the language. All this en-
abled the Federalists to defeat him by a close vote, in which they were
aided by the gathering clouds of conflict, which broke, June 18, 1812, in
Mr. Madison's declaration of war against England.1
The preceding years of mercantile restrictions had not only hardened and
embittered the Federalist leaders, but had estranged the affections and
worn out the temper of the people of Boston and of New England, ready
enough to have supported a manly war policy in 1807. Their trade had
been crippled, and had crumbled away before restrictive measures; the
navy, which they chiefly manned and in which they believed, had been
neglected, and they were in no humor for a war which put the finishing
stroke to their commercial prosperity and activity for the time being.
They were perfectly ready to sympathize with the protest of the Federalist
representatives against the war, which they accepted with sullen dislike.
Some of the Federalist leaders, notably Samuel Dexter,2 conceiving that
party differences should be buried in the presence of the enemy, seceded ;
but the Federalist majorities only grew with each election, while the belief
that the war was needless and unjust, and was part and parcel of a general
policy designed to ruin New England, spread daily and gained favor, carry-
ing with it resistance to the administration. Into the controversies thus
engendered it is not fitting to enter here, although they involved the for-
tunes of the town, for they were wide and far reaching, and chiefly con-
cerned the Nation and States. The general sentiment in Boston seems to
have settled down into a determination to do nothing in active support of
offensive war, but resolutely to defend themselves against any foreign ag-
gression. This they were called upon to do before the war closed.3
In 1814 the British policy of coast descents was extended to New Eng-
land ; scattered attacks were made, accompanied with burning and pillage,
and the sails of English cruisers could daily be descried from Boston. The
town was in a defenceless condition, the forts almost useless, and owing to
the bitter quarrels with the administration no help had been given, or was
1 [The news of this declaration reached Bos- proclamation for other ends than for the mili-
ton June 23, 1812, and the General Court, then tia to be held in readiness for an emergency,
in session, passed a vote, 406 to 240, disapprov- — ED.]
ing of it. General Dearborn, as the United '-' [See Sargent's Reminiscences of Dexter, p.
States officer commanding in Massachusetts, 77. — ED.]
immediately made a requisition on Governor 3 [The events leading up to the war, and
Strong for a body of the militia, eight com- the part played in it by Boston, are detailed
panics of which were to be assigned to Bos- in General Palfrey's chapter in the present
ton; but the Governor refused to issue his volume. — ED.]
212
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
to be looked for, from the national government. The people of Boston and
of Massachusetts had, however, no mind to endure the fate of Washington,
and took prompt measures to
protect themselves. The old
forts were put in order, and
a new one, Fort Strong, was
thrown up on Noddle's Island,
the work being rapidly per-
formed by large bodies of ready volunteers
under the direction of Loammi Baldwin, the
engineer.1 The militia were called out and
stationed at the forts and at other points, ready
to repel the expected attack, which fortu-
nately never came.
The exposed condition of the capital
and of the other seaports however, and
the neglect of the national government,
did much to precipitate the crisis in the
relations of State and Nation which had
been long impending. In October the
Legislature took steps toward concerted
action among the New England States,
with a view to defending themselves and forcing upon the administration
the policy which they believed to be right. The result was the famous
Hartford Convention, whose history belongs to the State and to New Eng-
land, and not to Boston ; although the feeling which led to that meeting
THE GERRYMANDER.2
1 [See Sumner's East Boston, p. 397. See
also General Palfrey's chapter in the present
volume. — ED.]
2 [In 1812, while Gerry was governor, the
Democratic Legislature, in order to secure an in-
creased representation of their party in the State
Senate, districted the State in such a way that the
shapes of the towns, forming such a district in
Essex, brought out a territory of singular outline.
This was indicated on a map which Russell, the
editor of the Centinel, hung in his office. Stuart,
the painter, observing it, added a head, wings,
and claws, and exclaimed, " That will do for a
salamander ! " " Gerrymander ! " said Russell,
and the word became a proverb. An engraving
of the fabulous beast was circulated later through
the State on a broadside ; and from one of these,
preserved by the late Isaac P. Davis, the above
cut, reduced from the original, seven inches
high, is copied. But the process had accom-
plished its purpose, for while the Federalist
majority in the State was sixteen hundred and
two, the senate stood twenty-nine Democratic to
eleven Federalist members. The next year pro-
duced a change; the Legislature became Fed-
eralist, and the old districts were restored. In
the Boston Gazette for April 15, 1813, there
is an "obituary notice"
of the monster, with a
cut representing him bent
up in his coffin, and a
sketch of his grave-stone :
"Hatched, Feb. u, 1812;
died, April 5, 1813." Such
is the story told by Buck-
ingham in his Reminiscen-
ces. But other claimants
have been put forward.
The place is said to have
been Colonel Israel Thorn-
dike's house in Summer
Street ; the artist, Tisclale ;
the sponsor, Alsop. See
Drake's Landmarks of Mid-
dlesex, p. 321. The reader
will observe that the back
line of the body in the large
cut forms a profile carica-
ture of Gerry, with the
nose at Middleton. — ED ]
THE LAST FORTY YEARS OF TOWN GOVERNMENT.
2I3
found its fullest expression, perhaps, in the capital, where the newspapers,
notably the Daily Advertiser then just started, urged strong measures and
hinted at secession, and where the younger and more violent portion of the
Federalist party was ripe
for almost any step. The
old and trusted leaders,
however, threw themselves
into the gap, determined
to commit no overt act,
but to check and control
the movement at that time
and leave the future to
shape their subsequent
course. Boston was rep-
resented at Hartford by
George Cabot, who was
chosen president of the
convention, and by Wil-
liam Prescott, Harrison
Gray Otis, and Timothy
Bigelow. The result was
as Mr. Quincy prophesied,
— a " great pamphlet,"
and the committee sent
to Washington reached
there at the same time as
the news of the Ghent
treaty.
Peace was received in
Boston with ringing of
bells and with every form
of rejoicing, public and
private;2 and by none was it more welcomed than by the Federalists.
The effect of the war on Boston was severe in the extreme. Not only
MASSACHUSETTS SIGNERS.1
1 [These are the signatures of the delegates
from Massachusetts to the final report of the
Hartford Convention. Of this number, Cabot
was born in Salem, but latterly lived in Boston.
Dane was a lawyer in Beverly ; necessarily prac-
tising much in Boston, acquiring eminence ; the
founder of a law professorship at Cambridge,
and the author of the ordinance of 1787. Otis
was well known. Prescott was the father of the
historian, and son of the Colonel Prescott of
Bunker Hill fame. Bigelow had been a lawyer of
Worcester County, speaker of the Massachusetts
House of Representatives, and was the father-in-
law of Abbott Lawrence. Thomas was a judge
of probate in Plymouth County. Wilde, though
born in Taunton, gained his early reputation as
a lawyer in Maine, became a Justice of the Su-
preme Court of Massachusetts, and removed to
Boston in 1831. Lyman and Bliss were important
men in the Connecticut Valley. Longfellow, of
Portland, was the father of the poet. Waldo was
of Worcester.
Theodore Dwight's History of the Hartford
Convention is in vindication of it. — ED.]
2 [See Mr. Josiah P. Quincy's chapter on
"Social Life in Boston," in Vol. IV., and Mr.
Edmund Quincy's Life of Josiah Quincy, p.
360. — ED.]
214
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
was commerce, the great source of industry and wealth, wholly cut off,
but the dependence upon England, now so difficult to realize, not only
GEORGE CABOT.1
for every manufactured article of luxury but for many of the necessities
of life, had, by the cessation of intercourse, brought a sense of privation
1 [No likeness of George Cabot of a maturer
age exists, and the present cut follows a portrait
owned by Colonel Henry Lee, kindly placed at
my disposal, which represents him at sixteen. It
is a pastel drawing. Mr. Lodge, the writer of
this chapter, published in 1877 the Life and Let-
ters of George Cabot, consisting chiefly of Letters,
which had been preserved by Mr. Cabot's corre-
spondents, with elucidatory introductions to the
several chapters. Mr. Cabot had himself before
his death destroyed almost all the papers re-
maining in his own hands. On the Hartford
Convention, however, Mr. Lodge's excursus is
prolonged and valuable ; and in writing it he had
the use of the Pickering manuscripts (over sixty
volumes in all) in the Massachusetts Historical
Society, and also the letters of Governor Strong.
Mr. Lodge has also drawn somewhat from //<;/;/-
moil's Works, and from Gibbs's Administration
of Washington and Adams, and in a smaller de-
gree from the Life of Timothy Pickering as con-
tinued by Mr. Upham. In turn Mr. Lodge's
work has been drawn upon in part by Mr. Henry
Adams in his Documents relating to Ntio Eng-
land Federalism, 1800-1815, which was pub-
lished in 1877 ; nor should there be forgotten
the Memoir of John Qnincy Adams, published in
1858 by President Quincy, and the voluminous
Memoirs, based largely upon Adams's Diary,
which have been issued in twelve volumes by his
THE LAST FORTY YEARS OF TOWN GOVERNMENT. 215
and loss into every household. But the war, and the policy of commercial
restriction preceding it, had upon Boston a deep and lasting effect, which
was hardly perceived at the moment, but which changed her business char-
acter, and has powerfully influenced her politics from that day to this. In
the first years of the nineteenth century Boston was a great commercial
centre and nothing else. Mr. Jefferson with his embargo and its kindred
measures, and the War of 1812, shook the whole financial and economical
system of the town. Commerce was crippled, at times almost extin-
guished, and comparatively large masses of capital were set loose and left
idle, while at the same time an immense fund of enterprise and activity was
unemployed. The result was to force all this capital and enterprise into
other channels, where they had begun to flow very slowly. Manufactures
received a great impetus ; and the capital, which had been turned aside by
the policy of the administration, did not, when peace came, revert to its old
pursuits. From being a strong free-trade town, Boston became as vigo-
rously protectionist before the first quarter of a century closed. Mr. Jeffer-
son seems to have designed to reduce the commercial interest and weaken
New England by his policy ; he certainly regarded with complacency the
fact that it would have that tendency. The result was that manufactures
were stimulated ; the progress of Boston was changed, not arrested ; and
New England industries were for years protected at the expense of his
beloved South.
The conclusion of the war, and the revival of business in all directions
closed the differences which had divided the country since the foundation of
the government, and turned men's minds from the political issues of the past.
It was the dawn of the so-called era of good feeling, the transition period in
which old parties disappeared and new ones were developed. The Federal-
ists of Massachusetts retained their power for many years, dexterously avoid-
ing the rocks of religious controversy on which their party brethren of
Connecticut were wrecked. They held the government by reason of past
services solely, for the great political questions which had brought them
forth and given them strength no longer existed. Gradually, however, they
faded away; the old leaders in Boston and elsewhere retired from public
life or were removed by death ; and the century had hardly completed its
second decade when the great party of Washington, really extinct for some
years, vanished even in name from our history finally and irrevocably.
Almost coincident with the disappearance of the Federalist party was
the change of municipal government in Boston from the town form to that
of a city. The change had been agitated at various times from a very early
period down to 1821, and in the next year the old town government came
son, Charles Francis Adams, between 1874 and progress easier in the Life of Hamilton as writ-
1877. The Life of Hamilton so far as it reacted ten by John T. Morse, Jr. in 1876. Of the part
upon the Federalism of Boston is not without im- played by the press in the political movements
portance ; and the reader who has not the cour- in this period, see D. A. Goddard's Newspapers
age to compass the somewhat assuming and vo- and Newspaper Writers in New England, 1787-
luininous Life by John C. Hamilton may find 1815, a pamphlet published in 1880. — ED.]
2l6
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
to an end. It had been the government of Winthrop and Cotton, of Adams
and Franklin. It had defied George III. and Lord North, and its name had
rung through two continents in the days when it faced the English Parlia-
ment alone and unterrified. It was the most famous municipal organization
in America, and it passed away into history honored and regretted. The
next chapter traces in detail the transformation which followed.
CHAPTER II.
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS, 1822-1880.
BY JAMES M. BUGBEE.
r I ^HE purpose of this chapter is to give some account of the local govern-
-*- ment of Boston since its organization under a city charter in the year
1822. The extent of the change in the administration of local affairs in-
volved in the establishment of a municipal council in place of the town-
meeting can hardly be appreciated without going back for a moment to con-
sider the origin and development of what is known as the New England
town-system. Most New Englanders cling to the belief that the system of
local self-government which their Pilgrim and Puritan ancestors set up here
was wholly original ; that a new principle of government was introduced
which had its natural culmination in the Declaration of Independence and
the formation of the Federal Union : but the investigations of modern his-
torians have made it clear that the early settlers of this country were gov-
erned largely by the traditions which had come down to them from their
Teutonic ancestors. The form of government which they established had
not its exact counterpart among any other people, but it was based on the
ancient Anglo-Saxon township ; and the riew features which were introduced
were only such as were necessitated or suggested by the peculiar circum-
stances in which the colonists were placed. They were wiser than many of
their eulogists would make them. Had they struck out for themselves in an
entirely new path, their subsequent development would have been wanting
in those elements of conservatism and steadiness which have shown New
England to be the lineal descendant of Old England.1
The charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company contained no express
authority for the erection of town governments or the establishment of
minor political divisions ; and Sir Edmund Andros could say with truth, that
in a legal point of view there was no such thing as a town in all New Eng-
1 [See Vol. I. pp. 217, 427, 445, 454. This exact study at the hands of Dr. Herbert B.
interesting subject of the origin of our town sys- Adams, of Johns Hopkins University. See H.
tern, upon which so much new light has been C. Lodge's English Colonies in America^ p. 414,
thrown since the publication of Sir Henry Maine's and Harvard University Bulletin, June I, 1881,
Village Communities, is now undergoing more or vol. ii. 214. — ED.]
VOL. III. — 28.
2l8 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
land. Boston was never formally incorporated as a town. The order of
the Court of Assistants (Sept. 7, O. S. 1630), changing the name from
Tri-mountain to Boston,1 has been construed by the courts to be sufficient
to entitle it from that time forward to all the privileges of a town ; but no
corporation was specifically established until 1822. Springing up in this
way, outside of the formal scheme of government devised by the king, the
line between the town governments and the colonial government could never
be very clearly defined ; and it may well be imagined that the former were
continually encroaching upon the just and necessary powers of the latter.2
Fortunately for the maintenance of local government, the colonial authority
as represented by the General Court was composed of delegates from the
towns ; and therefore almost any exercise of authority on the part of the
towns, which did not interfere directly with the operations of the general
government, was permitted and indeed encouraged. The extent and variety
of the powers exercised by the town of Boston in its early days go far be-
yond those exercised by the city of to-day. The conditions upon which
strangers should be allowed to reside in the town,3 the admission of new
comers to the rights of citizenship,4 the conditions upon which allotments
of land should be made,5 the prices of commodities, the rates of wages for
labor, the conditions upon which suits at law should be prosecuted,6 and even
great questions of peace or war, were discussed in meetings of all the free-
men ; 7 and the action of the town was determined by the number of voices
that shouted for the affirmative or the negative.
In the beginning all public affairs were passed upon by the whole body
of freemen ; but as the population increased, the frequent attendance upon
town-meetings was found to be burdensome. Then certain persons were
chosen to act for a limited time, — at first for six months, and afterward for
a year, — to "order the affairs of the town." That was the origin of the
Board of Selectmen, the name by which the chief executive body in town
government is now widely known.8 Subsequently other town officers were
elected to look after special departments of the public service, — constables,
surveyors of highways, clerks of the market, sealers of leather, packers of
fish and meat, and hog-reeves.9 A commissioner was also chosen at the
1 Vol. I. p. 116. they are called "the selectmen." See Vol. I. pp.
2 [See Mr. C. C. Smith's chapter, " Boston 388, 505 of this History.
and the Colony," in Vol. I. p. 217, of this His- 9 Reeve is from the Anglo-Saxon Gerefa,
tory. — ED.] concerning the etymological connection of which
8 Boston Town Records as printed in Second with the German Graf there has been a good
Report of Record Commissioners, 1877, pp. 10, 90, deal of controversy. It is curious to see how a
109, 152. once honored title has become degraded. The
4 Ibid. p. 46. first civic temporal magistrates in England were
6 Ibid. p. 6, et seq. the Reves. William the Conqueror, in the first
6 Ibid. p. 5. charter granted to London, "greets William
7 See Richard Frothingham's Oration, July the Bishop, and Godfrey the Portreve." Later
4, 1874 ; City Documents, 68, 1874. the Anglo-Saxon Portreve was superseded by the
8 They are referred to in the first volume of French Mayor. Shire-reve has been contracted
Boston records as "the ten men," "the nine to Sheriff; and the Reve survives only as the
men," and "the town's men," until 1647, when keeper of hogs.
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS. 2 19
annual meeting to receive the proxies for magistrates and county treasurer
and carry them to the shire-meeting.
The system of government which grew up in this irregular way was full
of make-shifts, — it would have vexed the soul of the political doctrinaire ; but
it was admirably adapted to the wants of a small, homogeneous community.
It was covered with patches, but the patches protected just the places which
hard wear threatened to expose. That it performed its functions to the gen-
eral satisfaction of the people for a period of nearly two hundred years is
shown by the fact that during that time they steadily resisted all attempts to
change its original form. There were not wanting individuals who favored a
change, and who had their patent devices for making the government better
than the people ; but so well satisfied were the majority of the voters with
what they had, that they clung to the old system long after the growth of the
town appeared to make a change necessary for the maintenance of good
government.1 Upon the suggestion of the selectmen a committee was ap-
pointed in 1708 to " draft a charter of incorporation " for " the better govern-
ment of the town ; " but at the annual March meeting in the following year
the " town's men " refused to accept the draft which was submitted to them,
and refused to refer the subject to any future meeting. The next attempt to
make a radical change in the constitution of the government was in 1784,
when, on the petition of a number of influential citizens, a committee of
thirteen was appointed " to consider the expediency of applying to the Gen-
eral Court for an act to form the town of Boston into an incorporated city,
and report a plan of alterations in the present government of the police, if
such be deemed eligible." The committee reported two plans, — one making
the town a body politic, by the name of " the Mayor, Aldermen, and Com-
mon Council of the City of Boston ; " the other making it a body politic by
the name of " the President and Selectmen of the City of Boston." At a
meeting of the inhabitants it was voted, " by a great majority," " inexpedient
to make any alterations in the present form of town government." 2
In 1791 "the want of an efficient police" led to another petition for
a change ; and a plan was reported which provided for a division of the town
into nine wards, and the election in each ward of two men who, with the
selectmen, were to constitute the Town Council, with power to make by-laws
and to appoint all executive officers except selectmen, town clerk, overseers
of the poor, assessors, town treasurer, school-committee men, auditors of ac-
counts, firewards, collectors of taxes, and constables, who were to continue
to be elected by the legal voters. A good deal of time was given to the
discussion of this scheme, and it was printed and distributed in hand-bills to
all the inhabitants ; but when the vote came to be taken upon its adoption,
it met the fate of former schemes. Another report in favor of changing the
1 [See Vol. I. p. 219; JV. E. Hist, and Geneal. Forming the T<nvn of Boston into an Incorporated
Reg. July, 1857 ; Quincy's Municipal History of City, Published by Order of the Town for the Pe-
B os ton, ch. i. — ED.] rusal and Consideration of the Inhabitants. The
2 [There is in Harvard College Library a day named for the further consideration of them
little tract of eight pages called Two Plans for is June 17. — ED.]
220 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
town government was negatived by a decisive vote in 1804. The next move-
ment for a change was not made until 1815, when a committee submitted the
draft of a bill which provided for the incorporation of the town under the
name of "the Intendant and Municipality of the Town and City of Boston."
The municipal council was to consist of the selectmen, chosen by the citizens
in town-meeting, and two delegates from each ward chosen by the inhabi-
tants of the ward. The Intendant was to be chosen annually by the
selectmen and delegates; and was given powers which made him rather
a mild chief executive. The title appears to have been imported either
directly from France or from the Gallicized municipalities in the Canadas.
This scheme came pretty near adoption, — nine hundred and twenty votes
being in the affirmative and nine hundred and fifty-one in the negative.
What turned the scale against it, perhaps, and what would have been
urged equally against any scheme by which the town government was to be
changed to a city government, was the fact that there was no provision in
the State Constitution which appeared to authorize the erection by the Gen-
eral Court of city governments. The subject was brought before the Con-
stitutional Convention of 1820, by one of the Boston delegates, Mr. Lynde
Walter, who procured the passage of a resolution instructing a committee to
inquire into the expediency of so altering the Constitution, that the Legisla-
ture should have power to grant to towns charters of incorporation with the
usual forms of city government. Daniel Webster, chairman of the commit-
tee to which the matter was referred, reported that it was expedient so
to amend the Constitution as to provide that the General Court should have
full power and authority to erect and constitute municipal or city govern-
ments in any corporate towns in the Commonwealth, provided such towns
contained not less than a certain number of inhabitants. The proposed
amendment was strongly opposed by some of the country members, who
feared that the city governments would make laws by which " the inhabi-
tants of the towns, going into the cities, would be liable to be ensnared
and entrapped." The reasons for the proposed change were set forth very
clearly by Lemuel Shaw, afterward the Chief-Justice of the Commonwealth.
He said that it was not the intention to grant any special powers or privileges
to the citizens of Boston, but simply to give them an organization adapted to
the condition of a numerous people. All the towns in the Commonwealth
possessed the powers and privileges of municipal corporations in England.
They had power to choose their own officers, to send members to the Gen-
eral Court, to make by-laws, to assess and collect taxes, to maintain schools
and highways, relieve the poor, and to superintend licensed houses and
other matters of local police. The Constitution as it stood required all the
inhabitants of a town to assemble in one body, be they few or many. The
sole purpose of the proposed change was to provide an organization by
which the voters in municipalities containing a large number of inhabitants
would be enabled to meet in sections for the purposes of election, and to
choose representatives who should be empowered to make the by-laws and
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS. 221
vote the supplies instead of the whole body. The amendment was adopted
by the Convention and subsequently (April 29, 1821) ratified by the people
of the State.
It would naturally be supposed that after this there would be no serious
opposition to the proposed organization of a city government in Boston ;
but there was a conservative element in the old town which could not be con-
vinced that any change was either necessary or desirable, even though the
venerable John Adams supported the amendment in the Convention. The
national census of 1820 gave the town a population of forty-three thousand
two hundred and ninety-eight. The number of qualified voters exceeded
seven thousand.
•
" When a town-meeting was held on any exciting subject in Faneuil Hall, those
only who obtained places near the moderator could even hear the discussion. A few
busy or interested individuals easily obtained the management of the most important
affairs in an assembly in which the greater number could have neither voice nor hear-
ing. When the subject was not generally exciting, town-meetings were usually com-
posed of the selectmen, the town officers, and thirty or forty inhabitants. Those who
thus came were for the most part drawn to it from some official duty or private interest,
which, when performed or attained, they generally troubled themselves but little, or not
at all, about the other business of the meeting. In assemblies thus composed, by-laws
were passed, taxes to the amount of one hundred or one hundred and fifty thousand
dollars voted on statements often general in their nature, and on reports, as it respects
the majority of voters present, taken upon trust, and which no one had carefully con-
sidered except perhaps the chairman."
Among the number who resisted the proposed change, " by speech and
pen, as long as there was any chance of defeating it," was Mr. Josiah Quincy,
who afterward, in his Municipal History of Boston, made the statement above
quoted. " He believed," says his son, " the pure democracy of a town-
meeting more suited to the character of the people of New England, and
less liable to abuse and corruption, than a more compact government."
In January, 1822, the subject was brought before a special meeting of the
inhabitants in Faneuil Hall, on the report of a committee recommending
that there should be a chief executive, called the " Intendant," elected by
the selectmen ; that there should be an executive board of seven persons
called the " Selectmen," elected by the inhabitants on a general ticket; and
that there should be a body with mixed legislative and executive powers
called a " Board of Assistants," consisting of four persons chosen from each
of the twelve wards. For three days the subject was debated with much
earnestness and some heat. The report was amended by giving to the
chief executive the title of " Mayor; " by putting "Aldermen" in place of
the Selectmen ; and by changing the name of the Board of Assistants to " the
Common Council." The amended report was then put into the form of five
propositions and submitted to the inhabitants to be voted upon by ballot,
yea or nay. The vote on what may be considered the test proposition, —
222 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
namely, " that the name of ' Town of Boston ' should be changed to ' City
of Boston,'" — was two thousand seven hundred and twenty-seven in the
affirmative, and two thousand and eighty-seven in the negative. The other
propositions were all adopted by a greater or less majority.
Application l was immediately made to the Legislature for an act of
incorporation ; and on Feb. 23, 1822, the Governor approved " an act estab-
lishing the city of Boston," which is known as the first city charter. As the
earliest departure, under Massachusetts laws, from the ancient system of
town government, the act was regarded as one of grave importance. The
city form of organization, copied in most cases from the form which had
been established in London as early as the thirteenth century, had long been
in use in other parts of the country-. New York received a city charter in
the English form in 1665, and several charters were granted in the name of
the king to large towns outside the New England colonies, previous to the
Declaration of Independence. The lord proprietor of Maine had exercised
the right given him by his patent to make the little town of Agamenticus
(now York), with two hundred and fifty inhabitants, a city under the name
of Gorgeana, with a mayor, aldermen, common council and recorder;
but when the province came under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, the
town system was substituted. In Connecticut, city charters were granted
immediately after the Revolution ; and so freely were they granted, that at
last " a little clump of Indians took it into their heads to apply for city pow-
ers and privileges," which " convinced the Legislature of the impolicy of
granting charters with so much liberality." 2
The new charter of Boston, drafted by Mr. Lemuel Shaw, provided that
the title of the corporation should be " the City of Boston ; " that the ad-
ministration of all the fiscal, prudential, and municipal concerns of the city,
with the conduct and government thereof, should be vested in one principal
officer, to be styled " the Mayor ; " one select council of eight persons, to be
denominated " the Board of Aldermen," and one more numerous council of
forty-eight persons, to be denominated " the Common Council ;" that the
city should be divided into twelve wards ; that the mayor, aldermen, and com-
mon councilmen should be elected on the second Monday of April annually,
and enter upon their duties on the first day of May ; 3 that the mayor and
aldermen should compose one board, the mayor presiding and having a
right to vote on all questions, but not the veto power ; that the administra-
tion of police, together with the general executive powers of the corporation,
and the powers formerly vested by law or usage in the selectmen of the
town, should be vested in the mayor and aldermen ; that all the other pow-
ers then vested in the town or in the inhabitants thereof as a municipal cor-
1 [See the paper in chapter iii. of this vol- the annual election was changed to the second
ume. — ED.] Monday in December; and the officers then cho-
2 From Remarks of John Adams, in the Con- sen entered upon their duties on the first Monday
stitutional Convention of 1820. Debates, Mas sa- in January following. In 1872 the election-day was
chusetts Convention, p. 195. changed to the Tuesday after the second Monday
8 By an act of the Legislature passed in 1825, in December.
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS.
223
poration should be vested in the mayor, aldermen, and common council, to be
exercised by concurrent vote, each board having a negative upon the other ;
that the citizens in the several wards should choose, at the annual meeting
in April, a number of persons to be firewards ; and also one person in each
ward to be overseer of the poor, and one person to be a member of the
school committee.
JOHN PHILLIPS.1
At " a legal meeting of the freeholders and other inhabitants of the town
of Boston," held in Faneuil Hall on March 4, 1822, the question, " Will you
accept the charter granted by the Legislature?" was decided in the affir-
mative, by a vote of 2,797 to 1,881. Among the large number who voted
in the negative there were many who opposed any radical change of the
1 [This cut follows an engraving of a portrait
owned by Mr. Wendell Phillips, kindly furnished
by him. Mr. John Phillips died May 29, 1823. A
memoir of Phillips, with an engraved portrait, ap-
peared in the Boston Monthly Magazine, Novem-
ber, 1825 ; and a brief sketch, with a portrait, is
also given in the N, E. Hist, and Geneal. Keg:,
October, 1866 ; and an account of his family in
Bond's Watertown, p. 885. There is also a sketch
in Loring's Orators, p. 249. — ED.]
224 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
old system, and others who were dissatisfied with the form of organization
provided by the new charter.
Mr. Josiah Quincy, who had always taken an interest in town affairs, and
who presided at the last town-meeting held in Faneuil Hall, was invited by
many substantial citizens to be a candidate for the office of mayor. He ac-
cepted the invitation, without knowing, it is said, that the Federal leaders
proposed to make Mr. Harrison Gray Otis the first mayor, preparatory to
his elevation to the governorship of the State. That any respectable Feder-
alist should be presumptuous enough to stand for any office which Mr. Otis
was willing at that time to take, was sufficient to stir up a great deal of feel-
ing among the party managers : it was much the same as if, twenty years
later, Mr. Choate had allowed his name to be used for an office which Mr.
Webster wanted. Mr. Quincy's supporters were not willing to release him
from his engagement, however, and it does not appear that he was at all
anxious to be relieved. It was not in his nature to be influenced, by weight
or numbers, to withdraw from a position which he had once deliberately
accepted. The night before the election the Democrats nominated Mr.
Thomas L. Winthrop for their candidate, and threw enough votes for him
to prevent an election, — a majority of all the votes being necessary for a
choice. Mr. Quincy would undoubtedly have been elected had not the
Democrats resorted to the trick of using Mr. Winthrop's name without his
authority, and greatly to his displeasure.
Both Mr. Otis and Mr. Quincy then withdrew their names, and John
Phillips l was elected without serious opposition. He was in many respects
well qualified for the position ; a man of rather pliable disposition, but of
strict integrity and general good judgment, — a character well fitted for the
somewhat delicate task of commending the new order of things to those
who had been adverse to a change. One who knew him well, and knew the
difficulties by which he was surrounded, has said : —
" Selected for the critical task of making the first experiment with a system new to
the acquaintance, and, as far as then appeared, uncongenial in some degree with the
habits, of his constituents, to the operation of which indefinite expectations were at-
tached an.d a jealous observation directed, the Mayor exhibited that discretion and
sound judgment which so eminently characterized him."
The new city government was organized in Faneuil Hall on May I, 1822.
The chairman of the board of selectmen delivered into the charge of the
new authorities the town records and title deeds, and the city charter inclosed
in a silver case. The Mayor, after paying " a just tribute to the wisdom of
1 A descendant in the fifth generation from He delivered the Fourth of July oration before
the Rev. George Phillips, the first minister of the town authorities in 1794; and for many years
Watertown. He was born in Boston, Nov. 26, acted as Town Advocate and Public Prosecutor.
1770; received his early education at the acad- He served for twenty years as a member of the
emy in Andover which bears his family name, State Senate, and for ten years was President of
and was graduated at Harvard College in 1788. that body.
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS.
225
our ancestors as displayed in the institutions for the government of the
town, under which for nearly two centuries so great a degree of prosperity
had been attained, and during which the great increase of the population of
the place had alone made this change in the administration of its affairs
essential," proceeded to remark, in respect of those " who encouraged hopes
which could never be realized, and of those who indulged unreasonable ap-
prehensions in regard to the city charter, that they would derive benefit
from reflecting how much social happiness depended on other causes than
the provisions of a charter." The policy of the new administration, to keep
things substantially as they were, was thus foreshadowed ; and it may be
said that that policy was adhered to during the year, but little of impor-
tance being done beyond the organization of the several departments of the
city government.1
The debt transferred from the town to the city amounted to about
$100,000, and was incurred on account of two prisons, then in course of
erection, and a new court house. The current expenses for the year 1822
amounted to about $249,000, and the tax levy for that year was $140,000.
It was a day of small things as compared with the present time.2 The ap-
propriations to meet the current expenses for the financial year beginning
May i, 1880, amounted to $10,190,387 ; and the tax levy was $9,466,896.
The result of the first year's administration under the new charter
did not meet the expectations of those who had been instrumental in
procuring it. They were eager for a more energetic system, and they
charged Mr. Phillips with pursuing a timid and hesitating course for fear
of losing his popularity ; but when he demitted office Mr. Quincy could
say of him : —
" After examining and considering the records and proceedings of the city author-
ities for the past year, it is impossible for me to refrain from expressing the sense I
entertain of the services of that high and honorable individual who filled the chair of
this city, as well as of the wise, prudent, and faithful citizens who composed during
1 The city clerk elected at this time — Samuel " Every incident that contributes to the life of thepic-
F. McCleary— continued to hold the office by ture is valuable, though it may seem trivial; so I add this as
... •.•,!-• • x- illustrating how small Boston limits were eighty vears ago.
successive annual elect.ons until his resignation „ My {ather( the first mayor> buiu in lSo^s the first
in 1852, when he was succeeded by his son, bear- brick house thai was built on Beacon Street. It still stands
ing the same name, who holds the office to-day ; on the western corner of Walnut and Beacon streets.
so that the city records from the beginning bear Abov(; a"d be'ow there we^ a few wooden houses, and
. J . next the State House stood Hancock s stone house, llus
the attestation of a single name. A city seal stree( ( Beacon) was then considered „„, „/ ttnvn.
was adopted, the motto for which was suggested " When Dr. Joy was advised to take his invalid wife out
by Judge Davis. It was taken from the follow- of town for the benefit of country air, he built her, eighty
ing verse of the Scriptures : « Sit Deus nobiscum, *?™ aRO- a wo°den house which stood where Mrs. Tu-
0 ' dor s house now does, — on the western corner ol Joy and
sicut fuit cum patribus nostris." — III. Regum, Beacon streets: the lot went back to Mt. Vernon Street,
viii. 57. As adopted for the seal it Stands : "Si- or near it. I have often seen loads of hay, cut on the square
cut patribus, sit Deus nobis." The impression between Joy, Walnut. Mt. Vernon, and Beacon streets, car-
..... . . . e ., .. c ried in to Dr. Joy's front gate, where Mrs. Armstrong's
within the motto contains a view of the city from from door stanJds now ^ my {a(her moved jnto his
South Boston Point. Beacon-Street house, his uncle, Judge O. Wendell, was
2 To show what a small part of the penin- asked, in State Street, ' what had induced his nephew to
sula of Boston was occupied at the beginning of move out "/ '<"««•' "
the present century, I venture to print the fol- [See the view of Beacon Street about this
lowing, from Wendell Phillips, Esq : — time, given in Mr. Stanwood's chapter. — ED.]
VOL. III. — 29.
226 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
that period the city council. . . . Whatever success may attend those who come after
them, they will be largely indebted for it to the wisdom and fidelity of their prede-
cessors."
And Mr. Otis, in his inaugural address in 1829, said : —
" The novel experiment of city government was commenced by your first lamented
mayor, with the circumspection and delicacy which belonged to his character, and
which were entirely judicious and opportune. He felt and respected the force of
ancient and honest prejudices. His aim was to allure and not to repel ; to reconcile
by gentle reform, not to revolt by startling innovation."
Mr. Phillips had no desire for a second term, his health having begun
to give way. Josiah Quincy l was therefore sought as a candidate by the
progressive element in the community. He accepted the position, and
was elected, receiving 2,505 votes out of 4,766, — the whole number cast.
Mr. Quincy was at this time fifty-one years of age, — to him the prime of
life ; a man of large experience, of kindly disposition, but of most decided
will. He left his impress on the government of the city as no other man
has done. His administration, covering a period of six years, has formed a
standard to which the efforts of his successors are continually referred. It
was not a great office to be a mayor with limited power over a city of only
forty-five thousand inhabitants ; but he performed the duties in such a way
as to give it more than a local importance, and to produce results of a last-
ing character. He was like an accomplished actor who takes a small part
and makes of it a great one.
In his inaugural address, the Mayor gave prominence to the defects of
the ancient town organization, and the remedy provided for them in the
powers of the mayor. His object was to bring the responsibility of the chief
executive into distinct relief before the citizens, and thereby prepare their
minds for the prominent part which he intended to play. In order to put
himself in a position to exercise to the full the powers conferred upon him
as mayor and as a member of the board of mayor and aldermen, he did not
hesitate to make himself chairman of all committees of the board. But
such was his tact and his capacity for work, that this extraordinary proceed-
ing does not seem to have excited any ill-feeling among his associates in
the city council.
He first gave his attention to improving the sanitary condition of the
city, and established the system of cleaning the streets and collecting house-
offal, which has been followed to the present day, and which has proved a
model of economy and efficiency. Under the town government the powers
relative to the preservation of the public health had been vested in a board
elected by the inhabitants ; but the city charter transferred those powers to
the city council, " to be carried into execution by the appointment of health
1 Of Mr. Quincy's previous career in public life some account will be found in another part of
this work.
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS.
227
JOSIAH QUINCY.1
commissioners, or in such other manner as the health, cleanliness, comfort,
and order of the city might in their judgment require." When the new
government was organized, three health commissioners were appointed with
1 [Stuart painted Mr. Quincy twice, — the
first time in 1806, a half-length, now belonging
to the heirs of Edmund Quincy, of Dedham. In
November, 1824, he painted him again, and this
picture Miss E. S. Quincy gave to the Museum
of Fine Arts in 1876 It is engraved on steel in
Edmund Quincy's Life of 'Josiah Quincy, and is
followed directly from the canvas in the above
cut. (Mason's Gilbert Sluart, p. 243.) There was
a third portrait, by Page, in 1842, in his robes as
President of Harvard University; and a fourth,
by Wight, about 1852, now in the Historical
Society's gallery. A statue of Mr. Quincy, by
W. \V. Story, which likewise represents him in
an academic gown, stands in Memorial Hall at
Cambridge. Another statue, showing him in
plain dress, executed by Thomas Ball, stands
in front of City Hall, and a photograph of it is
given in City Document, No. 115, for 1879. The
document contains a description of the ceremo-
nies of dedication, including a commemorative
oration by his Honor F. O. Prince, then mayor
of the city. There is a bust of Quincy by Hora-
tio Greenough, and another by Crawford, in Me-
morial Hall at Cambridge. See E. Quincy's Life
of y. Quincy, p. 550; where is also an engraving
from a photograph from life, taken in his eighty-
ninth year. — Eu.]
228
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
the general powers of the town board of health. They were unwise enough
to stand in the way of certain reforms proposed by the Mayor, and they
were speedily swept out of existence. The internal police of the city was
placed under the superintendence of the city marshal ; and the external
police, covering the enforcement of the quarantine regulations, was placed
under a single commissioner. The board of surveyors of highways was also
abolished, and by legislative enactment the powers were conferred upon the
mayor and aldermen, who have continued to exercise them up to the pres-
ent day.
QUINCY MARKET AND FANEUIL HALL.1
The next important measure which Mayor Quincy initiated and carried
out, and the one by which he is most generally known, was the establish-
ment of a new market-house. The Faneuil Hall market-house was first
opened in 1742; and at the time of which we are writing the whole space,
occupied by stalls in and around the building, did not exceed fourteen hun-
dred feet. The accommodations were not only insufficient for the wants of
the inhabitants, but they were notoriously unhealthy and extremely incon-
venient of access. The scheme proposed by the Mayor for enlarging the
1 [This view follows the engraving in Quincy's
Municipal History of Boston, taken by Hammatt
Billings (1826), not long after the erection of the
market-house. Pemberton Hill is seen in the
distance. It was then sixty or more feet higher
than now, and on its slope was a tower, built
by Lieut.-Governor Phillips, in the garden of the
old Faneuil house. The large trees were on
the rear part of the Vassall estate, then occu-
pied by Gardiner Greene ; and they were a
prominent land-mark for ships entering the har-
bor. A similar view is given in Snow's Boston,
p. 378. See also Dearborn's Boston Notions, p.
115. — ED.J
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS.
229
market was of such magnitude as to invite serious opposition, even from
many of the most prominent citizens ; and he had not only to win over to
his views the members of the city council, but he had to procure the en-
dorsement of his scheme by the inhabitants of the city and the Legislature
of the Commonwealth. The opposition was bitter and determined, but the
Mayor triumphed over every obstacle. What was accomplished can best
be stated in his own words : —
" A granite market-house, two stories high, five hundred and thirty-five feet long,
fifty feet wide, covering twenty-seven thousand feet of land, including every essential
accommodation, was erected at a cost of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Six
new streets were opened, and a seventh greatly enlarged, including one hundred and
sixty-seven thousand square feet of land ; and flats, docks, and wharf-rights obtained of
the extent of one hundred and forty-two thousand square feet. All this was accom-
plished in the centre of a populous city, not only without any tax, debt, or burden
upon its pecuniary resources, — notwithstanding, in the course of the operations funds
to the amount of upwards of eleven hundred thousand dollars had been employed, —
but with large permanent additions to its real and productive property." 1
The corner-stone of the new market-house was laid on April 22, 1825,
and the stalls were opened in i82/.2
Among other reforms instituted by Mr. Quincy soon after he came into
office was the reorganization of the fire department. Its efficiency at that
time depended largely upon the aid of the inhabitants, applied under the
authority of the firewards who were elected annually by the citizens in each
ward. " They formed lanes of by-standers, who, by their direction, passed
1 Quincy's Municipal History of Boston, p. ness consists in supplying the hotels and retail
74. [This history is reviewed by Francis Bowen dealers in and around Boston, and the great sum-
in the North American Review, vol. Ixxiv. An ac- mer resorts on the sea-shore and among the
count of the semi-centennial celebration, Aug. mountains of New England. The market owes
26, 1876, of the opening of the market, was pub- much of its success and its popularity to the
lished in 1877, by William W. Wheildon. — ED.] high character of the men who occupy it. In-
2 It was due to the originator of the enter- stead of disposing of the stalls annually by auc-
prise that his name should have been given tion, as is customary in many other cities, it has
officially to the new market ; but the plausible always been the policy in this market to fix a
statement that it was merely an enlargement of reasonable rent for the use of the stalls, and re-
the old Faneuil Hall Market was sufficient, with new leases to good tenants. This policy has
the personal feeling against Mr. Quincy engen- not been without its results in maintaining a
dered by his persistence in carrying out his high standard in the quality of the articles of-
plans, to induce the city council to extend the fered for sale. Charges of " forestalling " and
name of the old market to the new. But the " monopolizing " have been often raised by a
people have taken the matter into their own few discontented persons ; but repeated investi-
hands, and the new house will always be popu- gallons by committees of the council have failed
larly known as "Quincy Market." to show that the influence of the market has
Since its establishment the character of the been used to maintain high prices. The statute
business transacted in it has almost wholly provision allowing sales from market-wagons on
changed. It has ceased to be the place to which the streets around the market-houses, introduces
the householders of Boston generally resort for an element of competition which effectually pre-
their supplies of provisions. It has come to be the vents any monopoly prejudicial to the public
great provision exchange for New England. It interests. The sales from these free street-stands
draws to its stalls food-products of the best from may be said to regulate the prices of provisions
all parts of the world, and it distributes them all in Boston. See City Document too of 1865, and
over the country; although its principal busi- City Document 91 of 1870.
230 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
buckets of water from pumps or wells in the vicinity to the engines playing
on the fire, and returned them for further supply." The men who worked
the engines were formed into companies, and received a small compensa-
tion for their services, besides being exempt from militia duty. " To be
first, nearest, and most conspicuous at fires was the ambition of the engine-
men ; and the use of hose, as it had a tendency to deprive them of this gratifi-
cation, was opposed." In 1823 several companies petitioned for additional
compensation. It was refused ; and in one day all the engines in the city
were surrendered by their respective companies ; and on the same day every
engine was supplied with a new company by the voluntary association of
public-spirited individuals. Application was then made to the Legislature
for authority to reorganize the department; and in 1825 an act was passed
giving the mayor and aldermen power to appoint all the engineers, fire-
wardens, and firemen. The sense of security which the new organization
gave is shown by the fact that the rates of insurance against fire on the real
property within the city were reduced twenty per cent.
In the year 1821, just previous to the change in the municipal organiza-
tion, Mr. Quincy, having given considerable attention to the subject of
pauperism, was appointed chairman of a town committee on the subject
of the relief and disposition of the poor of Boston. On his recommenda-
tion, and under his supervision, a tract of land was purchased on the north-
erly shore of South Boston, and a House of Industry was erected. The
overseers of the poor — a body then elected by the town, and subsequently
by the inhabitants of the city, and possessing statutory powers which made
it largely independent of the city council — resisted the proposed change in
the disposition of the paupers ; and it was not until Mr. Quincy became
mayor, and obtained additional legislation, that the reformation which he
had recommended was fully carried into effect.
" The evils attendant on the promiscuous mingling of the honest poor with rogues
and vagabonds were mitigated by the establishment of the first House of Correction,
properly so called, in Boston during the first year of his mayoralty. A building in
the jail-yard was used at first for this purpose, but the establishment was afterward
removed to South Boston, near the House of Industry. The separation, more impor-
tant yet, of the young convicts from the old in places of penal restraint led to the
establishment of a House of Reformation for juvenile offenders, the results of which
— both direct, in the large proportion of young persons who were saved to society by
its means, and indirect, by the encouragement which its successful experiment has
given to the system elsewhere — have been of the happiest nature." 1
As chairman of the school committee, Mr. Quincy took an active in-
terest in the public schools. His action upon one question, the mainte-
nance of a high school for girls, raised a good deal of feeling against him
at the time ; and, if repeated at the present day in the face of the more
numerous advocates of a higher education for women, the feeling \vould
1 Life of Jostah Qnincy, by Edmund Quincy, p. 394.
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS.
23I
doubtless be intensified ; but the principle which he stated at the time, as
governing his opposition to the establishment of a high school which would
be used almost wholly by the daughters of wealthy parents, was a sound
one. " The standard of public education," he said, " should be raised to
the greatest desirable and practicable height; but it should be effected by
raising the standard of the common schools." 1
During Mr. Quincy's second term he had the honor of receiving and
entertaining General Lafayette, who was made the guest of the city. The
building at the corner of Park and Beacon streets was given up to the
city by the club which occupied it, and, having been completely furnished
and provided with servants, was made the home of the distinguished visitor
during his stay.2
There were many other events of interest in the municipal history of
the city during Mr. Quincy's administration ; but as they were of a tem-
porary character the limits of this work preclude any description of them.
It was hardly possible for any man to do what Mr. Quincy did during
those years without raising an opposition which must sooner or later de-
prive him of an office held by the frail tenure of an annual election. As
his sixth term drew to a close, the opposition combined and assumed a
tone of bitterness and malignancy which has seldom been equalled even
on a much larger political field. The reorganization of the fire depart-
ment provoked the hostility of a class of voters who were active and some-
what unscrupulous. Then there were those whose private interests had
suffered in the establishment of the new market-house and the penal and
reformatory institutions, and in the enforcement of the laws relating to
gambling, prostitution, and the sale of intoxicating liquors. In carrying
out the street improvements and the enlargement of the market, a city
debt, amounting to $637,000, had been created; and this excited consider-
1 [See the chapters by Mr. Dillaway and Dover Street, bore this inscription, written by
Mrs. Cheney, in Vol. IV. — ED.] Charles Sprague : —
2 [There is an account by General W.H. Sum- WELCOME, LAFAYETTE!
ner of Lafayette's visit, with the entertainment
u- :_*!.- ar £» rr*_j j /-• / r> The fathers in glory shall sleep,
given him, in the N, E. Hist, and Geneal. Re?., , , .
That gathered with thee to the fight ;
April, 1859. (See Drake s Landmarks, p. 354.) But the sons will eternally keep
The editor has been favored with the use of a The tablet of gratitude bright.
SCrap-book, filled with newspaper clippings, We bow not the neck ; we bend not the knee :
broadsides, etc., collected by Miss E. S. Quincy But our hearts' Lafeyette> we surrender to thee !
during Lafayette's stay in America. A manu- In a recent account of this visit, by Ella R.
script note in it says: "On Commencement day, Church, in the Mag. of Amer. Hist., May, 1881,
Mayor Quincy called for Lafayette at his lodg- it is stated, in testimony of Lafayette's happy
ings, and while the barouche waited for the Gov- memory, that at the reception at the State House
ernor's carriage to precede, a crowd gathered, he recognized an elderly colored man who, as a
'Have you ever been in Europe, Mr. Quincy?' servant of Hancock, had waited upon the Mar-
asked the guest. 'No, never.' ' Then you can quis when a guest of his master forty years be-
have no idea of what a crowd is in Europe. I fore. The descendants of Major Judah Alden
declare, in comparison the people of Boston also preserve by tradition a remark which he
seem to me like a picked population out of made to that old soldier when he first saw him
the whole human race.'" (See also Edmund on this visit, — "Alden, how are you? I know
Quincy's Life of Josiah Quincy, 404.) Anarch, you by your nose !" See also Dearborn's Boston
which was erected on the Neck, just above Notions, p. 282. — ED.]
232
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
able discontent among the taxpayers, although the Mayor was able to
show that in carrying out these improvements the city had become pos-
sessed of real estate exceeding in value $7OO,ooo.1 He could never have
- -
PARK STREET.2
maintained his position as long as he did, had he not been a man of the
strictest integrity, — a man against whom even an unscrupulous opposition
1 The average rate of taxation during the
last seven years under the town government was
$8.15 on a thousand. During the first seven
years, under the city government, it was $7.27.
2 [The house on the left of the picture is the
one occupied by Lafayette. It was built about
1804, by Thomas Amory, but with its extension
was afterward converted into four dwellings.
Malbone the painter, Samuel Dexter the lawyer,
and Governor Christopher Gore have all lived
in it. It is also seen in the heliotype of the
Common, 1804-1810, given in another chapter.
The portion above and beyond the main entrance
became the residence of George Ticknor, the
historian of Spanish literature, and in it he died.
The window above the front door, and the two
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS. 233
found it impossible to frame a charge of dishonesty, — and had he not,
moreover, constantly used his tongue and his pen to explain and defend
his measures before the people.
At the municipal election in December, 1828, Mr. Quincy failed on the
first ballot to receive a majority of all the votes cast. Another ballot was
then taken with substantially the same result.1 Thereupon the Mayor sent
a note to the press, stating that " no consideration would induce him to
again accept the office."
At the close of his term he summoned the two branches of the city
council to meet in convention, and delivered an address which those who
had made themselves conspicuous in opposing him must have long re-
membered. In concluding he said: —
" And now, Gentlemen, standing as I do in this relation for the last time in your
presence and that of my fellow-citizens, about to surrender forever a station full of
difficulty, of labor, and temptation, in which I have been called to very arduous duties,
affecting the rights, property, and at times the liberty of others ; concerning which
the perfect line of rectitude — though desired — was not always to be clearly dis-
cerned ; in which great interests have been placed within my control, under circum-
stances in which it would have been easy to advance private ends and sinister projects,
— under these circumstances, I inquire, as I have a right to inquire, — for in the re-
cent contest insinuations have been cast against my integrity, — in this long manage-
ment of your affairs, whatever errors have been committed (and doubtless there
have been many), have you found in me anything selfish, anything personal, any-
thing mercenary? In the simple language of an ancient seer, I say: 'Behold, here
I am ; witness against me. Whom have I defrauded ? Whom have I oppressed ?
At whose hands have I received any bribe ? ' " 2
After Mr. Quincy's withdrawal from the canvass, Harrison Gray Otis
was induced to become a candidate, and was elected without opposition for
windows beyond it, lighted his library, of which 1859, and Edward Everett delivered the dedica-
a view is given in Mr. Cummings's chapter in this tory oration. See Editorial Note to the chap-
volume. The house next beyond, originally the ter on " The Bench and Bar," in Vol. IV. —
home of Abbott Lawrence, the merchant and ED.]
ambassador, is now occupied by the Union Club. l On the first ballot Mr. Quincy lacked eighty-
Mayor Quincy lived in a house further down the three votes of a majority; and on the second bal-
street. Park Street, when laid out by Charles lot he lacked sixty-six votes.
Bulfinch in 1804-5, was called Park Place, and - I have dwelt at some length on this early
had the following residents from the church up : period of our municipal history, because the foun-
General Arnold Welles, Dr. John C. Warren, dations of our present system were then estab-
Richard Sullivan, Jonathan Davis, John Gore, lished. Indeed, something more than the founda-
Judge A. Ward, Jonathan Amory, Governor tions were laid. It may be said in general terms
Gore. In 1860 the houses, going up the street, that the only material changes made in the sys-
were occupied by Thomas Wigglesworth, Dr. J. tem which was put into operation during the ad-
Mason Warren, Mrs. T. W. Ward, Josiah Quincy, ministration and through the instrumentality of
Jr., President Quincy, J. Sullivan Warren, Gov- Mayor Quincy have been made in recent years ;
ernor Henry J. Gardner, Mrs. Abbott Lawrence, and have been necessitated, as the change from
George Ticknor. See view of Common in Life the town to the city government was alone ne-
of John C. Warren. The statue of Daniel Web- cessitated, by the increase of population. See
ster, by Hiram Powers, standing in the State Report of Commissioners on the revision of the
House yard, in the foreground, was erected in City Charter, City Document 3 of 1875.
VOL. III. — 30.
234 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
three successive terms. He was at this time sixty-three years of age,
having been born in Boston, Oct. 8, i/oo.1
The principal recommendation which he had to make in his first address
to the city council was that the project for railroad communication with the
Hudson River should be encouraged. "Unless," he said, "the surveys and
calculation of skilful persons employed in this business are fallacious, there
is no doubt that a railroad from this city to the Hudson may be made with
no greater elevation in any part than is found between the head of Long
Wharf and the Old State House; and that the income would pay the inter-
est of the capital employed."2
On the day fixed for the organization of the city government of 1830,
Mr. Otis was unwell, and the members of the city council were invited to
assemble at his private residence for the purpose of being qualified. It
was a proceeding without precedent; but no one thought of questioning
the propriety of any request from Mr. Otis. His invitation was equivalent
to a command ; and the aldermen and councilmen went to his house and
were sworn in, and listened to the reading of the inaugural address. It
appeared that the city debt was $883,630; and that the assets, exclusive
of city lands, amounted to $257,341.42. The assessors' valuation of real
and personal property for purposes of taxation was $29,793.00, and the
rate of taxation was $8.10 on a thousand.3 The fifth national census, of
1830, gave the city a population of sixty-one thousand three hundred
and ninety-two.
In May of this year the Society for the Suppression of Intemperance
petitioned for a band of music on the Common during the afternoons and
evenings of the general election, and on the Fourth of July, — "such a prac-
tice having, in their judgment, a tendency to promote order and suppress
1 He had been prominent in public affairs al- uals, public or private, of the many or the few,
most from the time of his leaving college. In or privy to any correspondence of whatever de-
1788, when twenty-three years of age, he deli v- scription, in which any proposition having for its
ered the Fourth of July oration before the town object the dissolution of the Union, or its dis-
authorities. He was a man of courtly manners memberment in any shape, or a separate confed-
and winning address. His style of oratory was eracy, or a forcible resistance to the government
much admired in those days ; but his published or laws, was ever made or debated ; that I have
speeches and addresses fail to sustain the reputa- no reason to believe that any such scheme was
tion which he held among his contemporaries, ever meditated by distinguished individuals of
His political popularity had been on the wane the old P'ecleral party." [See H. C. Lodge's
for some years, and he could not forbear making chapter immediately preceding this. — ED.]
a pathetic reference to the fact in his first inau- - [See further on this subject Mr. C. F.
gural address as mayor. This address, delivered Adams's chapter in Vol. IV. — ED.]
in Faneuil Hall in presence of a large assembly 3 It should be stated that the law in force at
of citizens, had for its principal object the vindi- this time (see Rev. Sts. 1836, c. 7, §§ 15, 30, 37)
cation of Mr. Otis's political career. To afford permitted assessors after they had made a true
him an opportunity for so doing, in a sort of valuation of the real and personal estate, to as-
semi-official way, was probably the chief induce- sess taxes upon a reduced value, provided their
ment to his acceptance of the office. His con- record should show both the real value and the
nection with the Hartford Convention having assessed value. The assessors of Boston, from a
been made the basis of a charge of disloyalty, date preceding 1830, and including 1841, assessed
he took occasion to " distinctly and solemnly half the true value. From 1842 to the present
assert that at no time in the course of my life time assessments have been made upon the full
have I been present at any meeting of individ- valuations.
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS.
235
an inclination to riot and intemperance." An appropriation was made
from the city treasury to carry out the request of the petitioners.
On the recommendation of the Mayor, the city council voted to alter
the Old State House, at the head of State Street, so as to provide accom-
modations therein for the mayor, aldermen, common council, and other
city officers. It was decided to take possession of the new apartments on
1 [This cut follows a likeness painted by Gil-
bert Stuart about 1814, and owned by the late
George W. Lyman, who kindly permitted it to be
engraved. A memoir of Otis by Augustus T.
Perkins is in the Memorial Biographies of the
N. E. Historic, Genealogical Society, 1880, vol. i.
See Loring's Hundred Boston Orators, p. 188.
A portrait of Mrs. Otis, after a picture by Mai-
bone, is given in Griswold's Republican Court.
— ED.]
236 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
September 17, the two hundredth anniversary of the settlement of the
town. Mr. Josiah Quincy, who, after retiring from the mayoralty, had
become President of Harvard College, accepted an invitation to deliver an
address on the same day. Accordingly, on the morning of the seventeenth
the two branches of the city council being assembled in convention, the
Mayor made an address, " after which," as the record states, " the two
branches went in procession to the Old South Church, escorted by the
Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, where an address was deliv-
ered by the Hon. Josiah Quincy, and a poem by Charles Sprague,
Esq." J
In his inaugural address for 1831 the Mayor had no special recommen-
dations to make except in regard to the administration of county affairs.
What he had to say on this point led to the passage of an act by the Legis-
lature, vesting all the property of the county of Suffolk in the city of Boston,
and requiring the city thenceforward to furnish and maintain all the county
buildings, and to pay all the county charges.
Tn the municipal election which took place Dec. 12, 1831, there were
three prominent candidates, Charles Wells, William Sullivan, and Theo-
dore Lyman, Jr. Mr. Wells and Mr. Lyman received, in round numbers,
eighteen hundred votes each, and Mr. Sullivan eleven hundred. A second
election was held December 22, the contest being between Mr. Wells and
Mr. Lyman, and the former was elected by a majority of seven hundred
and four votes, and re-elected in the following year without opposition.
The election of Charles Wells2 was a sort of protest from the middle
classes against the magnificent way of .doing things inaugurated by Quincy
and Otis, and against any further increase of the city debt. He had some
knowledge of city affairs, having served as a member of the common
council and the board of aldermen. He was a man of simple character,
not much versed in affairs of state, but not ill-qualified, on the whole, to
perform the ordinary duties of the mayor's office. He made no formal ad-
dress when the city government was organized in 1832, and his two terms
of service were not marked by any events of importance beyond the erec-
tion of the present Court House, the extension of Broad, Commercial, and
Tremont streets, and the establishment and enforcement of strict quaran-
tine regulations, by which the inhabitants were protected from the spread
of cholera, then (in 1832) prevalent in the British provinces.
At the election which took place in December, 1833, there were two
candidates for the mayoralty. Theodore Lyman, Jr., who was called the
Jackson candidate, and William Sullivan, who was the candidate of the
1 [See Vol. I. p. 246. — ED]. The only and had the cows behaved with proper respect
other notable event of this year was the exclu- to the ladies, Mayor Otis would never have inter-
sion of cows from the Common. Rights of pas- fered with their ancient privileges,
turage on this public ground had been enjoyed 2 He was born in Boston, Dec. 30, 1786, and
by certain of the householders ever since 1660; was by occupation a master builder.
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS.
237
National Republicans, the party which had supported Mr. Wells. The con-
test resulted in the election of Mr. Lyman, who held the office for two terms.1
He made no address when the government was sworn in on the first Mon-
day in January ; but he took occasion a few weeks later to send a long
and carefully prepared message to the common council, recommending to
its " early and earnest attention the subject of bringing a copious and
steady supply of pure and soft water into the city of Boston." A portion"
THEODORE LYMAN."
of the inhabitants were supplied with water at this time by an aqueduct
corporation, chartered in 1795. The water was conveyed from Jamaica
Pond, in West Roxbury, through four main pipes of pitch-pine logs.3 The
1 He was a native of Boston, born Feb. 20,
1792, and was educated at Phillips Academy and
Harvard College. A man of admirable parts, of
good understanding, enlarged by a liberal educa-
tion and extensive foreign travel, he was well
equipped for a more responsible and dignified
office than the one which a laudable ambition to
serve his fellow-citizens had prompted him to
accept.
- [This cut follows a likeness by Gerard,
painted in Paris in 1818, and now owned by
Colonel Theodore Lyman. There is a sketch
of Mr. Lyman's character in L. M. Sargent's
Dealings with the Dead, No. 56, p. 204 ; and a
memoir by his son, Colonel Theodore Lyman, in
the Memorial Biographies of the N. E. Hist.
Geneal. Soc., 1880, vol. i. See the Genealogy of
the Lyman Family, by Lyman Coleman, Albany,
1872.— ED.]
8 [The route of this aqueduct is shown in
Dearborn's map of 1814, given in another chap-
ter.—En.]
238 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
lineal extent of the pipes in Boston was about fifteen miles, extending on
the easterly side of the city nearly to State Street, and on the westerly
side to the Massachusetts General Hospital. In 1825, on the recommenda-
tion of a committee of the city council, Mr. Quincy appointed Professor
Daniel Treadwell a commissioner " to ascertain the practicability of supply-
ing the city with good water for the domestic use of the inhabitants, as
well as for the extinguishing of fires and all the general purposes of com-
fort and cleanliness." Professor Treadwell subsequently reported that there
were two places in the neighborhood of Boston from which an adequate
supply of pure water could be obtained, and which appeared to possess
advantages over all others ; namely Charles River, above the falls of Water-
town, and Spot Pond, in Stoneham. Estimates of the cost of bringing
water into the city from those two places were furnished ; but no further
action was taken by the city council until 1833, when the Mayor was re-
quested to apply to the Legislature for the necessary authority to supply
the inhabitants with water. The authority was not granted ; and there the
matter rested until Mr. Lyman's message was received. The subject was
then referred to a committee of which the Mayor was chairman, and' they
selected Colonel Loammi Baldwin, a distinguished engineer, to make a sur-
vey of the several sources of supply. Colonel Baldwin's report was of
great and permanent value. It furnished the basis on which all subse-
quent surveys and reports relating to the water supply have been made.
He came to the conclusion that Farm Pond, in Framingham, and Long
Pond, in Natick, were the most eligible sources. The committee having
the subject in charge recommended that the question of introducing water
through the agency of the city council should be submitted to the people ;
but no action was taken beyond printing and distributing the engineer's
report. Twelve years elapsed, during which a water supply was the princi-
pal topic of discussion in the city government; and then, in 1846, satisfac-
tory legislation was obtained, enabling the city to draw from the sources
recommended by Colonel Baldwin.1
On the night of Aug. 11, 1834, the Ursuline Convent, on Mount Bene-
dict in Charlestown (now Somerville), was destroyed by a mob, composed
largely of men who lived in Boston. Vague threats of what the " Boston
Truckmen " intended to do were made for days and even weeks beforehand,
but they produced no serious impression upon the authorities or upon the
citizens generally ; and when the mob rolled up to the convent doors and
began its work of destruction, there was not a solitary policeman or other
peace officer to bar its progress.
The Ursuline school, from which the institution derived its support, was
composed 'almost entirely of Protestant pupils, many of them the daughters
of wealthy or well-to-do parents living in Boston or in its vicinity; but dark
stories had been circulated concerning the restraint put upon some of the
1 [A history of the introduction of water into and printed in 1868 ; and a supplement, bv D.
Boston was prepared by Nathaniel J. Bradlee, Fitzgerald, was added in 1876. — ED.]
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS. 239
nuns. One of them, while in delirium from brain fever> had escaped in her
night-dress and taken refuge in a farm-house near by. While being taken
back to the convent, her ravings had attracted attention, and it was said that
she had fallen under the displeasure of the lady superior, and been long
confined in an underground cell. About this time a sensational book, called
Six Months in a Convent, was published as the work of a girl who had just
escaped from the Ursuline Convent. " It purported to relate the threats
and persuasions used by the inmates of the convent to make the writer a
Catholic against her will; and it ended with an account of her escape from
their clutches just in time to save herself from being carried off by force to
St. Louis." The common people beliqved all these stories ; and it must be
said that the original impulse which moved those who organized the attack
on the convent was not a bad one. They regarded this institution, and all
such institutions, as " anti-Christian, anti-republican," and in every way
" injurious to the best interests of the community;" but that feeling would
probably never have moved them to acts of violence. What did move
them was the belief that an old-world institution had been established among
them where persons were deprived of their liberty, and where gross, im-
moralities were practised by " a company of unmarried women placed for
life under the sole control of a company of unmarried men." The way in
which they proceeded to vindicate republican institutions and the laws of
society cannot, of course, be excused from any point of view ; but there is
this to be said, that they acted from a much higher motive than the men
who, in the following year, dragged Garrison through the streets, or who,
many years afterward, broke up Antislavery meetings and resisted the en-
forcement of the Conscription Act.
As the mob surged up to the building, the lady superior, a woman of
great courage and dignity, but altogether wanting in discretion, tore herself
from the detaining hands of the sisters, and, rushing out on the front steps,
ordered the men to disperse immediately; "for if you don't," she is re-
ported to have said, " the Bishop has twenty thousand Irishmen at his com-
mand, in Boston, who will whip you all into the sea." One cannot help
feeling a sort of admiration for the fiery little French-Irish woman, standing
alone before some thousands of riotous Protestant Americans and making
such a speech ; but such a speech, if made, was not calculated to soothe
the passions of those to whom it was addressed. Two shots were fired at
this time by some one in the crowd ; " and the affrighted nuns, hovering in
the shadow of the door, behind my lady, pulled her back by force and
barred the door." All the inmates of the institution then withdrew to the
back-garden, and subsequently found refuge in a private house on Winter
Hill. The doors of the convent were forced, the rooms ransacked, and the
building was then set on fire and entirely destroyed. Several of the engine
companies in Boston, attracted by the light of the fire, went to the scene with
their engines, and were afterward charged with aiding the rioters ; but the
charge was not sustained. As the work of destruction went on, the spirit
240
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
of lawlessness and violence developed rapidly, as is usual in such cases,
and was stimulated by drink. The lady superior was sought for, and had
she been found she would probably have been killed.
On the day following the affair at Mount Benedict, there were serious
apprehensions of a riot in Boston; and a conflict would undoubtedly have
taken place between the returning rioters and the Irish population, had not
the Mayor taken measures to prevent it.1 He called a meeting in Faneuil
Hall at one o'clock that day; and, after speeches by Mr. Quincy and Mr.
Otis, resolutions were adopted in which the attack on the convent was de-
nounced as "a base and cowardly act; " and the Mayor was requested to
appoint a committee of citizens to investigate the affair, and " to adopt
every suitable mode of bringing the authors and abettors of the outrage
to justice."
On the request of the Mayor, the State authorities made arrangements
to call out the militia in case the posse comitatus was found inadequate to
the support of the laws; but no further disturbance occurred. Madame
St. George, the vivacious lady superior, being unable to hire another build-
ing in this vicinity for her purpose, and making herself somewhat obnoxious
by her snuff-taking, her levity, and her denunciations of the canaille, drifted
off with her black-robed sisters into another part of the country, and was
heard of no more by the " Boston Truckmen ; " but the blackened and crumb-
ling walls of the convent remain to mark the spot where once stood the most
" elegant and imposing building ever erected in New England for the educa-
tion of girls." 2
In his inaugural address, at the beginning of the year 1835, the Mayor
called attention to the city debt, now amounting to $1,265,164.28, and sug-
gested that if the present policy of borrowing for all purposes that could not
be considered as strictly belonging to. the current expenses of the year was
pursued, it was obvious that in a single century there would be an accumu-
lation both of interest, which it would be troublesome and inconvenient to
pay, and of principal, which it would be most burdensome to redeem. He
recommended, therefore, that whenever any new public work was ordered, a
certain proportion of the cost should be added to the appropriations of the
year. To this recommendation we owe the establishment of a sinking
1 Colonel Theodore Lyman writes : — shot!' Immediately the band-master went in all
" I used to hear my father relate the amus- haste and told them he would not play. This
ing device by which he prevented an anti-Catho- defection damped their ardor. However, a small
lie riot in Boston, after the convent affair. The number collected and began to move across
Charlestown mob had arranged to march in pro- Charlestovvn Bridge. At the city end my father
cession on the day following the fire, and to pass had stationed a man on horseback, who, as the
through Boston with a brass band, and bearing crowd drew near, turned and, in an ostentatious
Catholic trophies stolen from the convent. Per way, galloped furiously off. Immediately a cry
contra, the Irish prepared to attack the proces- rose: 'He is going for the military!' and the
sion when it entered the city. mob retired whence it came ! "
" My father sent for the leader of the band, 2 [See the statements on these events made
and said : 'You are to play at the head of the in the chapter on "The Roman Catholic Church
procession. The militia are under arms. They in Boston," in the present volume, and also City
will fire. You are a stout man, and will be surely Document 1 1 of 1834. — ED.]
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS. 241
fund, which has been of great value in preserving the city credit. He also
dwelt at some length in his message on the subject of pauperism, and the
reformation of juvenile offenders, making some valuable suggestions which
were afterward acted upon.1
It was during this year that the famous demonstration against the
Abolition movement occurred, of which a particular account is given in
another chapter.2
On August 15 a great meeting was held in Faneuil Hall, to show that
the wealth and intelligence of Boston were opposed to any interference with
the constitutional guarantees which protected slavery. The Mayor pre-
sided; and it should be said of him, as of many others who took part
in this meeting, that, while condemning the methods of the Abolitionists, he
was heartily in sympathy with any measures by which, in a constitutional
way, slavery could be restricted or exterminated. His Fourth of July
oration before the town authorities, in 1820, and his Report to the Massa-
chusetts House of Representatives, in 1822, on the admission into this State
of free negroes and mulattoes, show that from early manhood he had sym-
pathized with the Antislavery cause.
A few days before the outbreak (October 21), a letter written by a
graduate of the theological seminary at Andover, whose integrity of char-
acter was vouched for by the professors, had been published in the news-
papers, stating that George Thompson had said to him, three or four times,
" that every slave-holder ought to have his throat cut." Thompson denied
having made the statement; but in the face of a solemn re-affirmation of
its truth by the person who originally made it, the denial went for little.
What followed was undoubtedly due largely to the feeling created by this
statement.
It was chiefly against Thompson that the passions of the hour were
aroused ; and when the Mayor, on inquiry, learned that Thompson was
not in the city, and would not be present at the meeting whose announce-
ment had caused so much solicitude on his part, there seemed to him no
reason to apprehend any serious disturbance of the peace, and no extraor-
dinary precautions were taken. Upon the seizure of Garrison, however,
by the mob, — the circumstances attending which need not be repeated
here, — and his rescue by the police, the Mayor ordered the officers to
take him into the City Hall, and offered his own body as a shield against
the rioters. After a stubborn fight, the entrance to the City Hall was
1 The establishment of the State Reform haps to his wise suggestions at the time of its
School at Westboro', " for the proper disci- foundation as to his princely gifts. In the last
pline, instruction, employment, and reformation codicil to his will he suggested a separate school
of juvenile offenders," the first institution of of a similar character for girls ; and to that sug-
the kind in America, was due mainly to Mr. gestion we owe the institution now in operation
Lyman. He gave $22,500 to the school during at Lancaster. He was the benefactor, and for
his lifetime, the sole condition being that his many years the manager, of the Farm School for
name should not then be made public; and he Boys on Thompson's Island,
left to it $50,000 more by his last will. The 2 (That on "The Antislavery Movement," by
success of the school has been due as much per- James Freeman Clarke. — ED.]
VOL. III. — 31.
242 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
gained, and Garrison was conveyed upstairs to the Mayor's office. As the
crowd attempted to follow, the Mayor took his stand on the steps, and
declared that " any person who passed there would have to pass over his
dead body." Night was coming on, and the excitement of the crowd
showing no abatement, it was thought best to commit Garrison to the jail,
ostensibly as a disturber of the peace. The necessary papers were made
out by the sheriff, who was present, and after a hard fight he was put into
a carriage and conveyed by a circuitous route to the jail, where he again
barely escaped falling into the clutches of the crowd assembled about the
entrance. As the doors of the jail closed upon him, he sank exhausted on
a seat, exclaiming, " Never was a man so rejoiced to get into a jail before." *
He received no personal injuries while in the hands of the mob. On the
day following his commitment he was discharged from the jail, and, acting
on the advice of friends, retired to the country for a short time.
The Mayor has been blamed for not having a sufficient civil force at hand
to check the mob in the beginning, and for not calling out the military forces
later, to prevent the necessity of committing Garrison to jail as a criminal ;
but it appears that he did use, as effectively as possible, the small police
force at his command ; and that, as the law then stood, he had no such
power as the mayor now has to issue precepts calling the militia to the
aid of the civil authorities. Mr. Samuel E Sewall, an Abolitionist who took
part in the meeting which caused the riot, and who was very active in efforts
for Garrison's security, said, in a communication to the Liberator shortly
after the affair, that he believed the Mayor " was as sincerely desirous of
suppressing the riot as any man in the city," and that he had " adopted
such measures as seemed to him calculated to effect the object."
There is no doubt that the public sentiment of the community was in
sympathy with the mob to the extent of breaking up the meeting ; and while
it was not in sympathy with it to the extent of doing personal violence to
Mr. Garrison, it was not in favor of punishing those who laid violent hands
upon him. According to one of the papers, the mob was composed, in part
at least, of "gentlemen of property and standing." The Advertiser of the
day following concluded a very short account of the affair by saying : —
" As far as we had an opportunity for observing the deportment of the great num-
ber of persons assembled, there appeared to be a strong desire that no act of violence
should be committed any further than was necessary to prevent these fomenters of
discord from addressing a public meeting. If those who call these useless meetings
have not regard enough for the public quiet to avoid the summoning of another
assemblage of this kind, we trust the proper authorities will take care that they are
bound over to keep the peace."
It is true, as has been stated, that hardly a night passes in any of our
larger cities without greater violence done to person and to property than
occurred in the so-called " Garrison mob." It would long ago have passed
1 Boston Atlas, Oct. 22, 1835. This statement rison use substantially the same words in describ-
is corroborated by persons who heard Mr. Gar- ing the affair shortly after it occurred.
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS. 243
out of memory but for the prominence which the man and his cause after-
ward attained. Garrison was then an obscure individual. During Mr.
Otis's administration the mayor of Baltimore requested him to suppress the
Liberator, copies of which were sent to that city. Mr. Otis wrote to him
that the " officers had ferreted out the paper and its editor, whose office
was an obscure hole ; his only visible auxiliary, a negro boy ; his supporters,
a few ignorant persons of all colors."
While the Mayor had no sympathy with the mob, and stood up bravely
in defence of the object of its persecution, he was not as zealous as he
might have been in seeking out and punishing those who had committed
such an offence against the rights of an American citizen ; not as solicitous
for the good name of the city as he showed himself to be when he called a
meeting in Faneuil Hall to denounce the destruction of the Ursuline Con-
vent; not as energetic as the mayor of 1837, who in two hours mustered a
sufficient military force to put down the great riot in Broad Street. Look-
ing back upon it at this day, one cannot but regret that the feeling which
prompted him to shield Mr. Garrison with his own body had not induced
him to make the effort, at least, to punish those who had so openly defied
his authority.
At the municipal election in December, 1835, Samuel Turrell Arm-
strong,1 the Whig candidate, was elected mayor for the ensuing year. He
held the office for only one term, and the principal acts of his administration
appear to have been the erection of the gloomy iron fence which still en-
closes three sides of the Common, and the extension of the mall through
the burial ground on Boylston Street. The new Court House in Court
Square was completed this year; and the ringing of the church-bells was
changed from eleven o'clock to one, — or, as it was said, from the hour for
drinking to the hour for dining.2
For some reason Mr. Armstrong was not a candidate for re-election ;
and at the end of his term the Whigs put up Samuel Atkins Eliot,3 a suc-
cessful and highly respected Boston merchant, and elected him over the
combined opposition by a majority of about eight hundred votes. He held
the office for three years, and showed a remarkable aptitude for the per-
formance of its duties. Following the custom of his immediate predecessors,
Mr. Eliot made no formal address upon the organization of the city gov-
ernment at the beginning of his first term.
The most important act of his administration was the reorganization of
the fire department. The necessity of bringing that department into a
1 He was born in Dorchester, Mass., April ernor after the election of Governor John Davis
29, 1784; educated at the public schools, and to the United States Senate, March 4, 1835.
became a printer, publisher, and bookseller. He 2 [See Vol. II. p. 509. — ED.]
had been a member of the board of aldermen 8 He was a native of Boston, born March 5,
for four years ( 1828-31) ; Lieut.-Governor of the 1798, and had served as a member of the board of
State for three years (1833-35), ancl Acting Gov- aldermen while Mr. Lyman held the mayoralty.
244
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
higher state of discipline and efficiency was made apparent to the citizens
on the occasion of the Broad-Street riot. The succession of violent dis-
turbances of the peace which took place during these early years under
the city government shows that there must have been in these " good old
times," as they are now called, a greater tendency to fighting and to the
destruction of property than there is at the present time. The Boston of
that day was small, but it was evidently intense. Its feelings could not
SAMLT.I, A. ELIOT.
then, as now, find expression in the mild vagaries-of a Radical Club. The
truckmen, looking piously on the motto of the city seal, saw no other
way of preserving the religion of their fathers than by burning the first
convent that was set up in their neighborhood ; the merchants, having in
their keeping the material prosperity of the city, saw no other way of pre-
serving that on which its prosperity rested — the Union of the States —
1 [This cut follows a photograph, taken 1817, is now in the possession of Professor
about 1850, kindly loaned by Charles W. Eliot, Charles Eliot Norton, in Cambridge. For his
his son, President of Harvard University. A family connections, see Vol. IV. p. 7. He died
portrait of Mayor Eliot by Stuart, taken about in 1862. — ED.)
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS.
245
than by hustling Mr. Garrison, and then locking him up in jail for allow-
ing himself to be hustled; the firemen — the embodiment of a long series
of Fourth of July orations — saw no other way of vindicating American
muscle and American independence than by breaking the heads of their
Irish fellow-citizens.
It was on Sunday, June 11, 1837, that the Broad-Street riot occurred.
An engine company returning from a fire came into collision with an Irish
funeral procession. It would not have been a serious affair had not an
alarm of fire been sounded on the church-bells, calling other fire companies
to the scene. The Irish had a temporary advantage in numbers ; but the
firemen, and those who came to their aid, soon got the upper hand. The
Irish were driven into their houses, whither they were followed by their
assailants, who had now reached a pitch of fury which, but for the appear-
ance of the military, would have ended in the destruction of the whole Irish
quarter of the town. No lives were lost, however, but there was a good
deal of blood-letting, and considerable property was destroyed. It was
estimated that over fifteen thousand persons were concerned in the affair.
The Mayor was on the ground at the first alarm, and finding himself
powerless to preserve order with the small police force under his com-
mand, he took immediate steps to have the military called out. Fort-
unately for the peace of the city, the National Lancers, constituting a
company of cavalry in the militia organization of the Commonwealth, had
just been formed, and the members being well known the authorities were
able to bring them together at short notice. Portions of several companies
of infantry were also collected; and in two hours after the affray began the
Mayor entered Broad Street at the head of some eight hundred men under
arms. The Lancers led the way and did the most effective service. The
street presented a singular spectacle at this time. The air was full of fly-
ing feathers and straw from the beds which had been ripped open and
emptied out of the windows ; some of the tenement houses were com-
pletely sacked, the occupants fleeing for their lives. Peace was restored
very soon after the arrival of the militia ; but the people were in such an
excited state that a military patrol was maintained through the night, and
sentinels were posted at all the church doors to prevent false alarms.
The energetic action of the Mayor alone prevented a serious loss of life.
From the report of an investigating committee of the city council, it ap-
pears that the blame for beginning the disturbance rests about equally on
the firemen and the Irishmen.
The moral which the Mayor drew from the occurrence was that both the
police and fire departments ought to be reorganized. He succeeded in
making the changes he desired in the fire department, but failed to secure
the co-operation of the city council in his proposed reform of the police
department. The firemen at that time received no compensation for their
services. A small annual allowance was made to the engine and hook and
ladder companies to pay for refreshments ; but beyond that the free souls
246 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
composing the department disdained to receive anything. The Mayor saw
that in order to secure discipline reasonable compensation must be made
for the services required. He told the city council that " it ought not to be
regarded as a matter of reproach to any one to receive pay for his labor."
He saw no reason why the firemen should not be paid and still retain all the
ambition, ardor, and generous spirit which characterize voluntary associ-
ations, and which are not less characteristic of naval and military corps.
The compensation was intended as an inducement for the firemen to place
themselves under that strict discipline necessary to insure efficiency, and
not as an equivalent for perils which could not be really paid for. The
ordinance reorganizing the department and fixing the pay of its members
was passed and went into operation on the first of September. For several
weeks it was necessary to maintain all over Boston volunteer patrols against
incendiaries.
In the following year authority was procured from the Legislature for
the appointment by the mayor and aldermen of police officers, with all the
powers of constables except the power of serving and executing any civil pro-
cess. Under this authority a small police force for day duty was organized
and placed under the city marshal, who was the principal health-officer of
the city. This force was entirely separate and distinct from the watch, which
at this time included one hundred and ten watchmen and ten constables,
who went on duty at six o'clock in the winter and at seven o'clock in the
summer, and patrolled the streets until sunrise.
At the municipal election in December, 1837, the inhabitants were called
upon to give in their votes on several amendments to the city charter pro-
posed by the city council. Most of the amendments were merely for the
purpose of curing certain defects in the phraseology of the original act;
but there was one which transferred from the inhabitants of the several
wards to the city council the power of electing overseers of the poor, and
this proposition was regarded with so much disfavor that all the amend-
ments were defeated. They were again submitted at a special election in
February, 1838, and again rejected.
Under the authority of an act of the Legislature, a superintendent of alien
passengers was first appointed by the city in 1837. It was made the duty
of that officer to prevent the landing of persons incompetent to maintain
themselves, unless a bond was given that the person should not become a
charge to the city or the State within ten years ; and the sum of two dol-
lars was collected from all other alien passengers as a commutation for the
bond. Some years afterward this assessment of " head money," as it was
called, was resisted by the transportation companies ; and a case being car-
ried up to the Supreme Court of the United States, the law which authorized
it was declared to be unconstitutional.
The erection of a hospital for the insane was begun in 1837, on the
grounds adjoining the houses of Industry and Correction, in South Boston ;
and was opened for patients in 1839.
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS. 247
In his inaugural address at the beginning of the year 1838 the Mayor re-
ferred to the commercial crisis which had occurred during the previous year,
and stated that it had produced far less general distress in this community
than in some others. He recommended the erection of a new city hall
and a county jail; but no action was taken on these recommendations be-
yond procuring plans and estimates for the former. No other measures of
importance received the attention of the city council during this year.
At the charter election in December, 1839, Jonathan Chapman,1 the
Whig candidate, was elected mayor, and held the office for the three fol-
lowing years. When he took office in January, 1840, he addressed the city
council at some length, recommending, as the principal object of their
efforts, the gradual reduction of the city debt. From $100,000 the debt
had in eighteen years risen to $1,698,232; but the city had in the mean
time acquired a property which not only accommodated the public busi-
ness, but furnished an income which covered more than half the interest on
the debt; and it owned, besides, about $200,000 in bonds and notes, and
between five and six million feet of land and flats. The national census
taken this year gave the city a population of ninety-three thousand three
hundred and eighty-three. The valuation of the real and personal prop-
erty of the city for purposes of taxation amounted to $47,29O,8oo,2 and
the rate of taxation was $11 on $1,000. The annual current expenses
of the city, excluding all except those for ordinary purposes, and also
the payments on account of the principal or interest of the city debt,
amounted to about $425,000. The public schools absorbed nearly a
quarter of this amount.
The project of building a new city hall on land lying between the Court
House and School Street, which had been purchased for the purpose dur-
ing the preceding year, was not favored by the Mayor. When, later in the
year, a new building for the probate and registry offices was completed, and
the old county court house was abandoned, the city council decided to
remodel the old building for the purposes of a city hall. This was done for
a comparatively small expense, and the city government took possession of
its new quarters on March 18, 1841, and listened to an address from the
Mayor.
The year 1840 formed a sort of epoch in the commercial history of the
city. Through the enterprise of Mr. Samuel Cunard, steam navigation was
established between Boston and Liverpool.3 The event was celebrated by a
great dinner, given on July 22, in a pavilion in front of the Maverick House
1 He was born in Boston, Jan. 23, 1807, and Christian Examiner, and the newspapers of the
was the son of Captain Jonathan Chapman, who day, an effective speaker on social and political
had served in the office of selectman for the occasions, and altogether a man of rather bril-
town of Boston. He received his education at liant parts.
Phillips Academy and Harvard College, and en- 3 See note p. 234.
tered the Suffolk Bar from Judge Shaw's office. 8 [See Mr. H. A. Hill's chapter in Vol. IV.,
He possessed considerable literary ability ; was and the Mayor's Inaugural Address, City Docu-
a contributor to the North American Review, the ment 2 of 1841. — ED.]
248 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
at East Boston. Referring to the matter in his inaugural address at the
beginning of the following year, the Mayor said it had already given to
the city a commercial importance unknown to her before ; and when con-
sidered in connection with the great internal improvement through this
Commonwealth, so shortly to be completed, the most important results to
our prosperity might justly be anticipated. The period of general depres-
sion in the various branches of industry and business seemed rapidly giv-
ing place to one of activity and success ; and he thought he could say truly
that in no period of the city's history had her prospects been so bright
and cheering.1
During this year the Mayor incurred the enmity of the sellers of in-
toxicating liquors by temporarily increasing the police force for the purpose
of prosecuting the violators of the law. There was a license law in opera-
tion at this time, which authorized the mayor and aldermen to grant as
many licenses to retail spirituous liquors as in their opinion the public
good might require. The Mayor was opposed to a license law, and in his
address to the city government of 1842 he gave his views on the question
at some length. It appears that he prosecuted the violators of the liquor
law simply because they were law-breakers, and not because he expected
in that way to cure the evils of intemperance. He objected to the license
law because it created a monopoly, and because its enforcement necessi-
tated the entering of a man's house or place of business for the purpose of
procuring evidence. He said : -
" Let the licensing system be entirely done away, as wrong in principle and in-
jurious in effect. Let the severest penalties be affixed to the keeping of disorderly
houses. Demand of your police to keep the outside in order, — to see to it that the
public peace is preserved, and the public proprieties in no way violated. But as
to the use of spirituous liquors within, so long as it is peaceable and in order, leave
that to individuals, and above all to the Washingtonians, who have grasped the sub-
ject in the right way."
During the year 1841 another revision of the city charter was made
and submitted to the Legislature, but no action was taken by that body ; and
the Mayor in his address at the beginning of the following year urged a
renewal of the application for additional legislation. The application was
made, but the higher power " smiling put the question by." 2
1 The great internal improvement referred to 2 In the ordinary affairs of the city nothing
was the Western Railroad, which was completed of importance beyond what has been mentioned
and opened to the Hudson River in 1841. The occurred during Mr. Chapman's three years of
city government " noticed this joyous occasion " service ; but it ought perhaps to be mentioned
by visiting Albany, and receiving in return a as something beyond the ordinary, that on Feb.
visit from the officers of that city. [See the 2, 1842, a public dinner was given to Mr. Charles
chapter on " The Canal and Railroad Enterprise Dickens, at which the Mayor made quite a no-
of Boston," by Charles Francis Adams, Jr., in table little speech, full of the kind of wit that is
Vol. IV., and Mr. Hamilton A. Hill's chapter on appreciated on such occasions ; and that on Nov.
"The Trade, Commerce, and Navigation of Bos- 24, 1841, the Mayor's wife danced with the Prince
ton," in the same volume. — ED.] de Joinville, at a great ball in Faneuil Hall.
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS. 249
Martin Brimmer1 was the next mayor of Boston. He was the Whig
candidate, and was elected by a majority of two thousand and sixty-one
votes over Bradford Sumner, the candidate of the " Loco-focos."
His address at the organization of the city government on Jan. 2, 1843,
was devoted largely to the question, which had been agitated for some
years, of building a new prison for the county of Suffolk. He pointed out
the defects of the old jail in Leverett Street, and the difficulty of caring for
its inmates in a manner suited to the requirements of the times. He had
given considerable attention to the subject of prison discipline and con-
struction, about which an active controversy was going on at that time ;
and he made some suggestions in his address which were acted upon when,
at a later day, the new jail was constructed in Charles Street.
Mr. Brimmer was also deeply interested in the cause of public education,
and was an ardent supporter of the new departure advocated by Horace
Mann. During his mayoralty he gave much thought to the improvement
and increase of the Boston schools. At that time the literature of educa-
tion was scanty. A valuable work — The School and the Schoolmaster, by
Alonzo Potter and George B. Emerson — had recently been published, and
the Mayor had an edition of three thousand five hundred copies printed at
his own expense, and sent a copy to each public school and school com-
mittee in the State.2
In his address to the city government of 1844 the Mayor sketched the
rapid growth of the city during the preceding twenty-two years, for the
purpose of impressing his associates with " the importance of enlarged
views in relation to the improvements of the city, in extending and beautify-
ing the streets and public places, in a careful attention to internal health
and police, in an enlarged system of internal and external intercourse, in a
liberal encouragement of charitable and literary institutions, in a far-sighted
preparation for the moral, literary, and physical education of the rising
generation."
The policy inaugurated by Mr. Chapman for a gradual reduction of the
city debt was continued by Mr. Brimmer. The debt which amounted to
$1,698,232, in 1840, was reduced under Mr. Chapman's administration to
$1,594,700, and. under Mr. Brimmer's to $1,423,800.
At the charter election, Dec. 9, 1844, several propositions in regard to
procuring a supply of pure water for the inhabitants of Boston were sub-
mitted to a popular vote. The proposition to take the supply from Long
Pond in Natick and Framingham, or from any of the sources adjacent
thereto, as recommended by Colonel Baldwin, was adopted by a vote of
six thousand two hundred and sixty yeas, to two thousand two hundred
and four nays. The Mayor was thereupon instructed to apply to the Leg-
1 Mr. Brimmer was born in 1793, and grad- board of aldermen, and one term as a represen-
uated at Harvard College in 1814. Although tative in the Legislature.
engaged in mercantile pursuits he was always 2 [See Mr. Dillaway's chapter on " Educa-
interested in public affairs, and previous to his tion, Past and Present," in Vol. IV. — ED.]
election as mayor had served one term in the
VOL. III. — 32.
250 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
islature for the necessary authority; and the last important. act of his ad-
ministration was a compliance with this instruction.1
Mr. Brimmer having declined a re-election for a third term, there was a
remarkable contest over the election of his successor. Thomas Aspinwall
Davis was the candidate of a new political organization, called the Native
American party; Josiah Quincy, Jr., was the candidate of the Whigs, and
Adam W. Thaxter, Jr., was the Democratic candidate. On the first ballot
Quincy received four thousand four hundred and sixty-four votes ; Davis,
three thousand nine hundred and eleven, and Thaxter, two thousand one
hundred and seventy-three. There being no choice, Mr. Quincy with-
drew, and Thomas Wetmore was put forward as the Whig candidate. He
proved less popular than Mr. Quincy, and on the second ballot Davis
led ; but Colonel Charles G. Greene, who had been nominated as the
Democratic candidate in place of Mr. Thaxter, received sufficient votes to
prevent a choice. It was not until the eighth ballot was taken, on Feb.
21, 1845, that Mr. Davis received a bare majority, and was declared
elected. His principal opponent on the last ballot was Mr. William
Parker, a Whig, who had been chosen chairman of the new board of alder-
men, and who acted as mayor until Mr. Davis was sworn in on February
27. Mr. Parker appears to have had some feeling over his defeat, as he
immediately withdrew from the board of aldermen.
Mr. Davis's inaugural address, delivered on February 27, was devoted
mainly to the subject of a water supply ; but he could not forbear referring
to the contest over his election, and saying a few words in defence of the
party which had brought him forward. He said : -
" The numerous and exaggerated statements that have been freely circulated in
reference to the objects and aims of the American Republican party, which has re-
cently sprung into existence and is so rapidly increasing in many parts of the coun-
try, require a word upon this subject. It is not the object of the American party, by
word or act, to engender unkind feelings between the native born and foreign born
citizen. Its object is, by the establishment of general and salutary naturalization and
registration laws, by educational and moral means, to place our free institutions upon
such a basis that those who come after us, the descendants both of the foreign and the
American citizen, may be free and independent."
On March 25 the Legislature passed an act authorizing the introduction
of water from Long Pond ; but the act was not to take effect unless ac-
cepted by a majority of the legal voters of the city. The question of its
acceptance was voted on at special meetings held in the several wards on
May 19, and it was rejected by a small vote; the principal cause of its re-
jection being the extraordinary powers given to the three water commis-
1 {History of the Introduction of Pure Water two vols., maps, and plans, Boston, 1868-1876.
into the City of Boston, by N. J. Bradlee, with a See also, on the matter specially referred to,
continuation from 1868 to 1876 by D. Fitzgerald, City Documents, 1844. — ED.]
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS. 251
sioners, who were, by the terms of the act, to be appointed as the agents
of the city council.
On October 6, Mr. Davis having been ill for some time, and unable to
perform the duties of his office, sent his resignation to the city council;
but it was not accepted, and he continued to be the nominal head of the
city government until November 22, when he died. He was a man of ex-
cellent character, but lacked the qualities essential to success in the admin-
istration of a public office.1
At the charter election on Dec. 8, 1845, there were three candidates for
mayor: Josiah Quincy, Jr., nominated by the Whigs; John T. Heard, by
the Democrats ; and William S. Damrell, by the Native Americans. Mr.
Quincy was elected by a handsome majority; and on the eleventh of the
same month the city council elected him, as authorized in such cases by
the city charter, to fill the office until the beginning of the next municipal
year. During the interval between November 22 and December n, Ben-
son Leavitt, then chairman of the board of aldermen, acted as mayor.
Josiah Quincy, Jr.,2 served in the office of mayor from Dec. n, 1845, to
the first Monday in January, 1849. He had a thorough knowledge of mu-
nicipal affairs, and his administration was characterized by much of the
energy and ability which distinguished his father's service of the city. In
his inaugural address on Jan. 5, 1846, he dealt with the water question in
away to secure the hearty co-operation of his associates in the government.
The time for deliberation, he said, had passed. The time for action had
come. A competent and disinterested commission had decided that Long
Pond was the source from which this blessing was to be derived, and the
honor of beginning the important work had been conferred upon the pres-
ent administration. He then proceeded to make a financial statement,
from which it appeared that the cost of introducing water, estimated by the
commissioners to be $2*651,643, was more than covered by the value of
the city lands, estimated at that time to be worth $3,175,000. The funded
city debt on Jan. i, 1846, amounted to $1,085,200, showing a reduction of
over $600,000 since 1840. This favorable exhibit of the city's financial
condition had much to do with securing the approval of the citizens to the
next act of the Legislature, authorizing the introduction of water. Ten
days after the new government came in, the Mayor was authorized to pe-
tition for another act. It was granted, in the form desired, on March 30,
and accepted by the citizens on April 13, the vote standing four thousand
six hundred and thirty-seven in the affirmative, and only three hundred and
forty-eight in the negative. On May 4, James F. Baldwin, Nathan Hale,
1 His ancestors were among the earliest set- 2 He was born in Boston, Jan. 17, 1802, and
lers of the town of Brookline, Mass., where he was educated at Phillips Academy and Harvard
was born on Dec. 11,1798. He was educated in College. He was a member of the common
the public schools, and at the time of his elec- council for four years (1833-37), and its presi-
tion as mayor was engaged in business as a dent for three years. [His portrait is given in
jeweller. Mr. Adams's chapter in Vol. IV. — Eo.J
252 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
and Thomas B. Curtis were chosen by the city council as commissioners
under the act; and on August 20 the ceremony of breaking ground for
the beginning of the work at the lake was performed by the Mayor, as-
sisted by his father and the venerable John Quincy Adams. At the colla-
tion which followed, the Mayor called attention to the name by which the
source of supply was generally known, and said the name Long Pond was
like the name John Smith, without distinction. He suggested, therefore,
that the Indian name " Cochituate " should be substituted, and the sug-
gestion was immediately adopted.
On Oct. 25, 1848, in the last year of Mr. Quincy's mayoralty, there was
another celebration, this time on Boston Common. The rising of the sun
was saluted with a hundred guns, and by the ringing of all the church-bells.
A great procession was formed, which marched through the streets and
then to the Common, where an ode, written by Mr. James Russell Lowell,
was sung by the school children, and addresses were made by the Mayor
and by Mr. Nathan Hale, chairman of the water commission. After the
citizens had been duly impressed with the importance of the blessing about
to be bestowed on them, the Mayor inquired if it was their pleasure that
water- should then be introduced. There was a tremendous affirmative, and
thereupon the gate was opened, and a column of water six inches in di-
ameter rose to a height of eighty feet. What followed is thus described
by the historian of the water works : —
" After a moment of silence, shouts rent the air, the bells began to ring, cannon
were fired, and rockets streamed across the sky. The scene was one of intense ex-
citement which it is impossible to describe, but which no one can forget. In the
evening there was a grand display of fireworks, and all the public buildings and many
of the private houses were brilliantly illuminated."
The committee on finance, of which the Mayor was chairman, was au-
thorized in 1846 to borrow money to the amount of $2,500,000, for carrying
on the work; but they found great difficulty in negotiating a loan upon any
reasonable terms. The leading European bankers who were consulted on
the subject united in saying that the repudiation of some of the States had
made it impossible to dispose of American bonds. During a part of 1847
the rate for money was two per cent a month, on the best paper. In April
of that year it was decided to advertise for a loan of a million dollars.
The city's financial condition was so well presented to capitalists, that the
finance committee were enabled to place the whole amount at a little less
than six per cent, a lower rate than was obtained by the United States.
During Mr. Quincy's first term the police force was reorganized. Francis
Tukey, who occupies a large place in the traditions of the department, was
appointed city marshal. He was a police officer of the French school,
possessing great coolness and audacity, a thorough knowledge of the weak-
nesses of human nature, and an entire indifference as to the methods by
which he accomplished his ends. On a larger field, and under a less dem-
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS. 253
ocratic form of government, he would have been one of the noted civil
officers of his time. He made himself the terror of evil-doers, and, it
must be added, of some who were not evil-doers. As the law then stood,
the city was obliged to maintain a night-watch, separate and distinct from
the police force. The watch numbered at this time about one hundred and
fifty men, and were under the control of a captain. They were in the habit
of enveloping themselves in large coats, and, after a round or two at the
beginning of their watch, retiring to the shelter of the watch boxes, which
were then provided, and slumbering peacefully until relieved. Marshal
Tukey's force consisted in the beginning of only twenty-two day men and
eight night men, — the night men being a sort of detective force, and,
under the lead of their dashing chief, doing more effective police service
than the whole night-watch. This force was gradually increased to forty
patrolmen for day duty, twenty patrolmen for night duty, and five regular
detectives. In 1853 the Legislature passed an act authorizing the city
council to unite the watch -and police, and in the following year the union
was effected.
Among other police regulations introduced during Mr. Quincy's term,
was one requiring licensed places of amusement to abolish what was known
as the" third row," - — a place which for years had been set apart in all the
theatres for the special accommodation of prostitutes. By the Mayor's
casting vote, licenses for the sale of intoxicating liquors were refused.
" When I left the office," says Mr. Quincy, " there was no place where
such liquors were openly sold. An attempt was made on this account to
prevent my re-election for a third term, but after a most excited canvass
I was rechosen."
In order to make good his statement as to the city's means for meeting
its obligations, the Mayor urged upon the city council the importance of
preparing the lands owned by the city for public sale. In 1847 he was
authorized to contract for filling a portion of the marsh lands on the east-
erly side of the Neck, known as the South Bay; and under the contracts
then made an extensive tract of land was graded, laid out in streets and
lots, and made ready for the market.
The subject of providing a new jail for the county of Suffolk, to which
reference has already been made, was discussed a good deal during the
first two years of Mr. Quincy's administration; but the two branches of
the city council were unable to agree upon any plan of action. In 1848
the city solicitor gave an opinion that the duty of providing a county jail
was imposed by law upon the board of mayor and aldermen, who in this
matter, as in some others, had the powers of county commissioners. The
Board lost no time in exercising its authority. The project of erecting
the jail in connection with the House of Correction at South Boston was
abandoned ; a large lot of land on the north-easterly corner of Cambridge
and Charles streets was purchased, and before the Mayor retired from office
he signed the contracts for the new building.
254 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
The reforms in our public school system which Horace Mann and
George B. Emerson were advocating at this time received the cordial sup-
port of the Mayor. The " double-headed system," as it was called, under
which a grammar master and a writing master exercised a divided authority
over the schools, was abolished ; women were more generally employed as
teachers, and larger school buildings were erected.
At the municipal election on Dec. 11, 1848, John Prescott Bigelow,1 the
Whig candidate, was elected by a majority of two thousand four hundred
and twenty-seven votes, although all shades of the opposition were repre-
sented in the four candidates who ran against him. He occupied the office
for three terms, and performed its duties with marked ability and discretion.
In his inaugural address at the organization of the government in 1849,
he dwelt particularly on the action of the mayor and aldermen of 1847 in
refusing licenses for the sale of intoxicating liquors. The attempt, he said,
to suppress the traffic in that way had utterly fai4ed. The number of drink-
ing places had augmented to an extent never before witnessed, and there had
been an appalling increase of intemperance and its attendant crimes. He
therefore recommended that the license system be re-established, as, with
all its defects, it produced better results than the prohibitory system. The
Mayor's recommendation on this point was sustained by the grand jury of
Suffolk County, who expressed the opinion that " the entire interdiction of
the sale of ardent spirits, however beneficial its effects may be in small com-
munities, is wholly inoperative for good in a great city." But the aldermen
were unanimously opposed to the granting of licenses ; and on a test case
which came up in the board on March 3, 1849, the Mayor had not a solitary
supporter. A majority of the members of the board were re-elected for the
following year, and therefore the question was not taken up. In 1851 the
increase of drunkenness and crime caused the aldermen to propound cer-
tain interrogatories to Marshal Tukey. In reply to the question, " How
many places are there where intoxicating liquors are sold?" he stated that
there were fifteen hundred such places ; and in reply to the request " to
furnish an opinion as to the best method of checking the increase of crime
and the traffic in liquors," he contented himself with the simple state-
ment, — " Execute the law." This novel proposition appears to have filled
the aldermen with such astonishment that they were unable to do anything
further that year. In 1852 a prohibitory liquor law was passed by the Leg-
islature. Governor Boutwell, who first vetoed the bill and afterward ap-
proved it, said " it contained new principles of legislation and was of doubtful
expediency." Before it went into effect the board of mayor and aldermen
granted about five hundred innholders and victuallers licenses under the
1 He was born in Groton, Mass., on Aug. 25, tion. The new mayor had taken an active inter-
1797, and was educated at Harvard College, est in City and State affairs, having served for
His father was a well-known lawyer, and his seven successive terms in the common council
grandfather, Colonel Timothy Bigelow, won an (1827-33), and for the same length of time (1836-
honorable reputation in the war of the Revolu- 42) as Secretary of State.
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS. 255
provisions of the old law. A complaint was made by some of the prohibi-
tionists against Moses Williams, who had received one of the licenses, with
a view to testing the power of the board to grant it; but the court sustained
the license.
Mr. Bigelow did not look with much favor on the plans of his predeces-
sor for the erection of a new jail. He suggested that it might be found
advisable to cancel the contracts, and alter the old building in Leverett
Street. The aldermen decided, however, to proceed with the work, modify-
ing the plans so as to make a considerable reduction in the expense. The
building was completed in 1851, at an expense, including the site, of about
$450,000.
The great expense involved in introducing and distributing water, and in
raising the grade of the city's lands in the southerly section of the city justi-
fied the Mayor in criticising any further expenditures which would add to the
city debt. He called attention for the first time to the fact that the high
rate of taxation which these expenditures involved was inducing many of the
largest owners of personal property to escape into the country at the annual
period of taxation. The number of citizens who thus evade the payment
of their proportion of the expense of providing for the public safety and
convenience in the city where they reside during seven or eight months in
the year, and where their business is protected during the whole year, has
steadily increased since Mayor Bigelow's time. Several attempts have
been made to check it by legislative enactments ; but the decisions of the
highest court, as to the right of a man to choose his domicil, have made
the new legislation practically inoperative.
During the summer of 1849 Asiatic Cholera prevailed to an alarming
extent ; the death rate exceeded that of any previous year in the history
of the city. With a population of about one hundred and thirty thousand,
the number of deaths was five thousand and eighty ; one-fifth of the num-
ber being caused by the epidemic.
The seventh national census, taken in 1850, gave the city a population
of one hundred and thirty-six thousand eight hundred and eighty-one,
showing an increase of about sixty-two per cent during the preceding de-
cade. The rapid growth of the city at this period was due to the opening
of communication by rail with the West and by steamship with the East.
The assessors' valuation of real and personal property within the city this
year amounted to $i8o,ooo,5OO.1 The tax levy was $1,237,000; and the
rate of taxation was $6.80 on a thousand. The funded debt of the city on
April 30, 1850, including water loans, was $6,195,144.35. In his address to
the city government at the beginning of 1850 the Mayor said: "I have
reason to believe that there is no other city in the world, certainly not in
our country, the affairs of which in proportion to its size are administered
at so great an expense as our own. The current annual expenditures of the
1 For an explanation of the remarkable increase in the valuation between 1840 and 1850 see
note to p. 234.
256 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
city of New York, with more than three times our population, do not more
than double those of Boston."
Among the noteworthy events of this year in which the local govern-
ment had an interest was the breaking up of a meeting in Faneuil Hall,
called to congratulate George Thompson, then a member of Parliament,
on his arrival in this country. Mr. Edmund Quincy presided. When
Wendell Phillips attempted to speak there were cheers for Webster, for
Jenny Lind, and for the Union, so loud and long continued that he was
unable to proceed. Mr. Thompson undertook to read an address, but was
obliged to give it up, and the meeting was declared adjourned. The per-
sons who interrupted the proceedings were good-natured, but determined
that neither Thompson nor his sympathizers should be heard. Marshal
Tukey, who was present with a considerable police force, took no steps to
check the disturbance ; and Mr. Quincy subsequently lodged a complaint
against him in the board of aldermen. At the hearing before a committee of
the board he met the charges against him with the statement that he acted
under the instructions of the mayor; and the committee so found, and ex-
onerated him.
At the beginning of the year 1851 the Mayor was able to state that
every section of the city was supplied with pure water. The whole cost
of the water-works at that time amounted to $4,321,000. The aggregate
length of streets, courts, and lanes through which main and distribution
pipes had been laid was ninety-six miles ; and the number of water-takers
was thirteen thousand four hundred and sixty-three.
During the year 1851 the new almshouse on Deer Island was completed
at a cost of about $150,000. The Mayor recommended that all the inmates
of the House of Industry at South Boston should be removed to Deer
Island ; and his recommendation was subsequently carried out. The system
of telegraphic fire alarms invented by Dr. William F. Channing was intro-
duced this year; and although the old-fashioned engines were then in use, it
was said to be hardly possible for a great fire to occur again. The first
steam fire-engine was introduced into the department in 1854. It was long
regarded as a failure, and the firemen found the English language quite in-
sufficient to express the contempt they felt for it. But continued experi-
ments led to improvements; and in 1860 the manual engines were banished
to those rural districts where the stagecoach was still in use, the steam-
engines took their place, and the character of the department was wholly
changed. The new fireman is as unlike the old fireman as the crew of a
modern steamship is unlike the crew of a sailing vessel of thirty years ago.
On April 2, 1851, the police arrested Thomas Sims, a fugitive slave, and
locked him up under the Court House to await the decision of the United
States authorities on a process for his rendition. The day-police, number-
ing at that time forty men, were armed with mariners' cutlasses, and drilled
in anticipation of a disturbance ; but as Sims was a disreputable fellow, the
public sympathy was not actively enlisted in his favor, and on April 12, at
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS. 257
four o'clock in the morning, he was marched down State Street under a police
guard, and placed without opposition on board a vessel bound for Savannah.
Mr. Charles Devens, Jr., then United States Marshal, applied to the mayor
and aldermen for a detail of police officers to aid in transporting Sims back
to the State from which he had escaped ; but the application was refused
on the ground that the city needed all its officers for home duty.1
The board of aldermen of this year gained a sort of flickering notoriety
by refusing the use of Faneuil Hall for a reception in honor of Daniel
Webster. The ground of the refusal was that a similar application from
the Abolitionists had been denied for fear of a disturbance. The intense
indignation of Mr. Webster's friends can easily be imagined. On the day
following their refusal another meeting of the mayor and aldermen was
held, and a motion made to reconsider the action. The mayor and three
aldermen voted to reconsider, and four aldermen voted in the negative.
Mr. Moses Kimball, a member of the board, declined to vote, and there be-
ing a tie, the motion to reconsider did not prevail. At a meeting of the
common council held a day or two afterward an order was passed ap-
pointing a joint committee " to tender Honorable Daniel Webster, in the
name of the city council of Boston, an invitation to meet and address his
fellow-citizens in Faneuil Hall at such time as he shall elect." The mayor
and aldermen then met, and after passing a resolution asserting their own
dignity and independence, concurred unanimously in the action of the com-
mon council. When the committee waited upon Mr. Webster at the Revere
House and humbly asked him to signify his pleasure in the matter, he treated
them very coldly, and said he would give his answer in writing. The answer
was a curt one : " It will not be convenient for me to accept the invitation."
When election day came the mayor and aldermen found that political pre-
ferment was not to be obtained through snubbing Mr. Webster. They were,
all and singular, remanded to private life, and there they mostly remained.
In the following year, on an invitation from a new and revised city council,
Mr. Webster addressed his fellow-citizens in Faneuil Hall, " the doors on
golden hinges-turning," — as Mr. Choate said.
The completion of the railroad lines connecting the city with the Canadas
and the great lakes was celebrated in September of this year. The official
report published by the city says : " However extensive and brilliant may
have been the public pageants on other occasions, not one, it is believed,
has on this continent surpassed, if any have equalled, that of September 17,
1 8, and 19." On the first day the President of the United States, accompa-
nied by the members of his cabinet, arrived and were received by the city and
State authorities ; and there was a military review on the Common. On the
second day there was an excursion down the harbor in the morning ; in the
afternoon, Lord Elgin, Captain General and Governor-in-chief of the British
Possessions in North America, arrived with his suite, and was formally re-
ceived by the Mayor ; and in the evening there was a grand military ball in
1 [See the chapter on "The Antislavery Movement." — ED.]
VOL. III. —33.
258 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Union Hall. On the third day there was a procession, followed by a dinner
on the Common, at which three thousand six hundred persons sat down;
and in the evening, fireworks and illuminations. Altogether it was a very
brilliant affair, and the Mayor did the honors of the city very handsomely.1
At the charter election on Dec. 8, 1851, there were four candidates for
the mayoralty. John H. Wilkins received a plurality of votes, but not
a majority; and a new election was held on December 24, at which Ben-
jamin Seaver,2 the Whig candidate, was elected, receiving only one vote
more than the united votes of his opponents. Mr. Seaver held the office for
two terms. A service of five years (1845-49) in the common council had
given him a knowledge of city affairs which, with his business training and
his executive ability, made him an excellent chief magistrate. It was said
that he owed his first election to the police ; and it is undoubtedly true that
Marshal Tukey directed his men to work for Mr. Seaver ; but if the mar-
shal looked for special favor on account of his political support, he had
a very imperfect knowledge of the character of the man whom he had as-
sisted to office. The law then in force required the annual appointment of
police officers ; and when the Mayor came to make his appointments for the
year he made some changes which the marshal criticised rather freely.
Mr. Seaver was not a man to be criticised with impunity by a subordinate.
He lost no time in putting another man at the head of the police force, and
Marshal Tukey ceased to be a terror to anybody.
The new mayor looked upon the office to which he had been elected as
essentially a business office, and he applied business principles to his admin-
istration of it. During the preceding six years the city had been engaged
in works which had added largely to the city debt. Those works had been
substantially completed, and the Mayor felt that it was time to' pause and
husband the city's resources for a while before entering on any new enter-
prises. That the record of his administration does not occupy so large
a space as that of some others is an evidence of the Mayor's firmness in re-
sisting the temptation to make a name at the expense of the city. The
most important act of his administration was the vote to erect a building
for the Public Library; but the story of that institution's inception and
progress is to be told elsewhere.3
On the recommendation of the Mayor a board of land commissioners
was established in 1853, to take the place of a joint committee of the city
council which had been found unequal to the duties imposed upon it; and
burials within the city limits, except in particular cases, were prohibited
after the first of July, 1853.
Henry J. Gardner, afterward Governor of the Commonwealth, was presi-
dent of the common council during Mr. Seaver's two terms; and on retir-
1 [See the chapter on " Canals and Rail- at the time of his election was engaged in busi-
roads," in Vol. IV. — En.] ness as an auctioneer.
8 He was born in Roxbury, April 12, 1795; 8 [^n Vol. IV., by the Editor of the present
educated at the Roxbury Grammar School ; and work. — ED.]
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS. 259
ing from the chair on Dec. 29, 1853, he delivered an address in which he
gave prominence to the question of revising the city charter. He pointed
out so clearly and forcibly the changes which an experience of thirty years
had shown to be necessary, that the city council of the following year ap-
plied to the Legislature for a new act of incorporation which was granted on
April 29, 1854.
At the municipal election on Dec. 12, 1853, there were three candidates
for mayor : Benjamin Seaver, the nominee of the Whigs ; Jerome Van Crown-
inshield Smith,1 the nominee of the Native American party; and Jacob
Sleeper, the nominee of the Temperance men. Mr. Seaver received the
highest number of votes, but not a majority; and on the third ballot, taken
Jan. 9, 1854, Dr. Smith was elected. During the interval beween the first
Monday in January and the date at which the new mayor was sworn in (the
sixteenth of that month) Mr. Benjamin L. Allen, the chairman of the board
of aldermen, acted as mayor.
The new mayor was a most indefatigable worker, and seemed to have
an ambition to leave some enduring memento in every department of
science, art, literature, and politics. Without undertaking to pass upon
his achievements in the more retired walks of life, it may be said that as
a man of affairs he was not entirely successful. He made a great many
suggestions for the improvement of the city government, but fortunately
for the city's credit few of them were carried out. He thought the po-
lice appointments would be improved if twelve men were elected by pop-
ular vote, one from each ward, with power to appoint all police officers,
subject to the approval of the mayor and aldermen. He recommended
the sale of Ouincy Market to private individuals ; the erection of an in-
sane asylum at Deer Island ; the erection of a tall tower on Beacon Hill,
for the use of the fire telegraph and fire department offices ; the forced
sale of city lands in order to promote the erection of buildings ; the ap-
pointment of a physician in every ward to be paid by the city for serving
the poor. He was never taken quite seriously as a chief magistrate.
In 1853 an act had been passed authorizing the city council to unite, by
ordinance, the watch and police departments ; but no action was taken un-
til the following year. On May 26, 1854, the old watch, Which had been in
1 Dr. Smith was born in Conway, New Hamp- Hall. Finding that the exhibition could be en-
shire, on July 20, 1800; graduated at Brown joyed without expense, he joined the moving
University in 1818, and subsequently took the de- throng, and was presently looking down from a
gree of Mcdicince Doctor at Williams College, quiet corner in the gallery upon what appeared
He served in the office of city physician for a to be a religious ceremony. He awaited in breath-
number of years, and in that way became familiar less expectation the advent of the animal whose
with city affairs. Like the famous Whittington, name was in everybody's mouth ; and it was not
he had a sort of premonition of his coming great- until after the ceremony was concluded that he
ness. The day on which he came to Boston to could be made to understand the significance of
seek his fortune happened to be the very day what he had witnessed. He had a presentiment
when the first mayor of the city was sworn into that he should some day be the central figure of
office. Seeing a large number of people moving such an exhibition, and he shaped his career
in one direction he asked the cause, and was told accordingly,
that a mare was to be inaugurated in Faneuil
260 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
existence as a department of the town and city government since 1631, was
abolished, and a police department was established, consisting of two hun-
dred and fifty men under the charge of a chief of police, two deputies, and
eight captains of divisions. The form of organization adopted at this time
was not materially changed until 1878, when the department was placed un-
der a commission appointed by the mayor. By an ordinance passed in 1863,
the system of annual appointments was changed to appointments during
good behavior.
On the very day that the new police force entered upon its duties it was
called upon, at a moment's notice, to suppress a riot in Court Square, caused
by the attempt to release Anthony Burns, a fugitive slave, who had been
arrested by United States officers and confined temporarily in the city prison.
For nine days, while the hearing on the question of Burns's rendition was
going on, the city was in a fever of excitement. The efforts of the city au-
thorities were directed solely to the preservation of order, and the execution
of the mandates of the court.1
On November 15 of this year the inhabitants voted to accept the revised
city charter. It went into effect for the purpose of electing municipal
officers on the second Monday in December, and for all other purposes
on the first Monday in January following. The principal changes intro-
duced by the new charter may be briefly summarized as follows: the
persons having the highest number of votes at municipal elections were
to be declared elected ; the mayor was deprived of his vote on matters
coming before the board of aldermen, and was given a qualified right to
veto all acts of the city council, and all acts of either branch where an ex-
penditure of money was involved ; the board of aldermen was enlarged
from eight to twelve members, and all the executive powers of the corpor-
ation, formerly vested in the selectmen of the town and in the board of
mayor and aldermen of the city, were transferred to it ; the mayor, when
present at meetings of the board, had the right to preside ; the school com-
mittee, which had consisted of the mayor, the president of the council, and
two persons elected annually from each ward, was enlarged by the election
of six persons from each ward, two being elected annually.
It was not the intention of those who drafted the new charter to curtail
the mayor's powers, but their work had that effect. Following the prece-
dent established by the elder Quincy, it had been customary for the mayor
1 Burns was taken into custody on the even- sons composing it flocked to the Court House
ing of May 24, 1854, and on the following day and attempted to break down the doors. One
taken before Edward Greely Loring, who was a constable was killed and several persons were
United States commissioner, and who also held seriously wounded. Burns was finally remanded
the office of judge of probate for Suffolk County, to slavery ; but subsequently he was bought by
On the evening of May 26, a great meeting was some Northern people and sent to Canada,
held in Faneuil Hall to protest against the outrage where he died in 1862. Edward G. Loring
on liberty. George R. Russell presided. While was removed from the office of judge of pro-
Wendell Phillips was speaking, a person entered bate, and was then appointed by the President
the hall and announced that a mob of negroes judge of the court of claims at Washington,
was in Court Square attempting to rescue Burns. [See the chapter on "The Antislavery Move-
The meeting immediately dissolved, and the per- ment " in this volume. — ED.]
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS. 261
to act as chairman of all the most important committees of the city council ;
and as the chief executive officer of the corporation, and as a member and
chairman of the board which had not only succeeded to all the executive
powers formerly exercised by the selectmen of the town, but which had
equal powers with the common council as a legislative body, he was in
a position to exercise a powerful influence upon the management of city
affairs. Under the new charter, the mayor continued to have the power
of appointing police officers, but his appointments were subject to approval
by the aldermen, and the administration of the police department was placed
entirely in the hands of the aldermen. That board also had control of the
fire department, the health department, the markets, the streets, the county
buildings and the granting of licenses for various purposes ; and where their
action did not involve an expenditure of money the mayor had no power to
pass upon it.
There has been no general revision of the city charter since 1854. Nu-
merous changes have been made, both directly and indirectly, by subse-
quent legislation, the most important of which will be pointed out further
on ; but the mayor's power, although somewhat increased, is still far from
being what is necessary to secure a responsible and an efficient executive.
At the charter election in December, 1855, Alexander Hamilton Rice,1
the " Citizens' " candidate, was chosen mayor for the ensuing year. The
Native American, or " Know-Nothing " party, as it had come to be called,
had fallen into disrepute, and its candidate, Dr. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, failed
of an election by some two thousand votes. Mr. Rice possessed most of
the qualifications by which an enduring success in public life is achieved, —
a pleasing address, a knowledge of men and affairs, more than ordinary
readiness and ability as a public speaker, and a keen sense of the popular
wishes. During the two years that he served in the office of mayor the
affairs of the city were managed with prudence and economy. In his first
address to the city council he announced as the guiding principle of his
administration the improvement of the institutions and means already pos-
sessed by the city, and the avoidance of new and dazzling enterprises which,
however promising, might prove in the end to be only costly experiments.
The most important act of the government during Mr. Rice's first term
was an agreement on the part of the city with the Commonwealth and the
Boston Water-Povver Company, by which provision was made for the im-
provement of the territory now known as the Back Bay. It should be stated
that previous to the year 1827 the city held the fee in about one hundred
acres of flats in this locality. In that year it ceded to the Boston Water-
Power Company its title to these flats in consideration of the right to dis-
1 Mr. Rice was born in Newton, Mass., on at the time of his election was the leading mem-
Aug. 30, 1818, and received his education in the her of a firm engaged in the manufacture of
public and private schools of the neighborhood, paper. He had served as a member of the
and in Union College at Schenectady. On leav- school committee and the common council, hav-
ing school he sought employment in Boston, and ing been president of the latter body in 1854.
262 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
charge the drainage from the adjoining territory into the Back Bay basin.
It was provided in the agreement made at that time that the water in this
basin should be kept at a certain specified depression below high-water
mark. This led to the erection of buildings on the surrounding territory at
a grade fixed with reference to the drainage into a bay several feet below
high-water mark, and presently the accumulation of sewage matter caused a
nuisance .from which the city has not yet ceased to suffer. In assenting to
this arrangement with the Water-Power Company, it must be said that Mr.
Quincy did not show his accustomed foresight. The exercise of the right
which the city had acquired created a nuisance which made the right value-
less. The new agreement entered into on Dec. 11, 1856, provided, among
other things, for the construction of a large sewer from Camden Street,
through lands of the Water-Power Company and the Commonwealth, to
Charles River. This tripartite agreement, although forming the basis of the
great improvement on the Back Bay, was never fully carried out ; and in
1864 a new agreement was entered into, establishing a more complete sys-
tem of streets and sewers for this territory.
The management of the public institutions of the city, including under
that head the House of Correction, the Houses of Industry and Reforma-
tion, and the Lunatic Hospital, was at this time in the hands of three distinct
boards, which were not always in harmony on questions affecting the city's
interests. Mr. Rice recommended that all these institutions should be
placed under the government of one board elected for different periods of
service, and composed in part of members of the city council and in part of
persons chosen from the citizens at large. In 1857 the Legislature passed
an act establishing such a board, and providing for the election of its mem-
bers by concurrent vote of the city council. The board is still in existence,
and has fully. answered the purpose for which it was organized.
In 1857 the Mayor recommended the establishment of a city hospital,
transmitting to the city council at the same time a memorial from several
leading physicians, giving their opinion of the necessity and value of such
an institution. In the following year an act was passed by the Legislature
authorizing the city to establish and maintain " a hospital for the reception of
persons who, by misfortune or poverty, may require relief during temporary
sickness." Elisha Goodnow, who died in 1851, had bequeathed to the
city twenty-five thousand dollars for a local hospital, provided it was estab-
lished either at the South End or South Boston ; but no definite action
was taken until 1860, when a site was selected at the South End on land
reclaimed from the sea, and a hospital building was erected thereon and
opened in 1864.
On Dec. 14, 1857, Frederic Walker Lincoln, Jr.,1 was chosen mayor for
the following year. He was known as the Faneuil-Hall candidate, having
1 Mr. Lincoln was a descendant of Samuel He was born in Boston Feb. 27, 1817, and re-
Lincoln, who settled in Hingham as early as 1637. ceived his education in the public and private
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS. 263
been nominated by representatives of different parties who held a conven-
tion for that purpose in Faneuil Hall. Charles B. Hall, his opponent, was
also put forward as a Citizens' candidate, but was badly beaten, Mr. Lincoln
receiving a majority of nearly four thousand votes.
As an administrative officer Mr. Lincoln was eminently successful. That
he won the respect and confidence of his fellow-citizens to an unusual de-
gree is shown by the fact that, without any effort on his part, he held the
office of mayor for a longer time than any individual who preceded him or
who has succeeded him.
The first year of his administration was not marked by any measures of
special importance, unless the uniforming of the police may be so regarded.
That was an act of great local interest, and the policemen and their friends
said a good deal about copying the customs of the Old World, and turning
free Americans into liveried servants. But the citizens who had often
searched in vain for a policeman in citizen's dress looked favorably upon a
change which would enable them to know an officer when they saw him.
In 1859 an act was passed by the Legislature, to take effect when ac-
cepted by the citizens of Boston, annexing to the city a considerable tract
of land and flats on the Back Bay, formerly included within the city of Rox-
bury ; and providing that no buildings should be erected between Arlington
Street and Charles Street. The act was accepted by an almost unanimous
vote of the citizens on April 26, 1859, and a plan was soon after adopted
for the improvement of the Public Garden. An attempt was made by
several public-spirited individuals to preserve the Back Bay as an open
space for sanitary purposes, and to that end a number of elaborate plans
were submitted to the State and city authorities ; l but the General Court
saw an opportunity to put some money into the State treasury by cutting
the territory into house lots, and greed carried the day.
In 1859 Mr. Lincoln was successful in securing the co-operation of the
United States authorities in the preservation of Boston Harbor. It appeared
from the testimony of the old pilots that the water was shoaling in many
places in the harbor, owing to the encroachments upon the headlands and
islands. In a special message to the city council, the Mayor recommended
the appointment of a commission of United States officers to make a sci-
entific examination of the subject. The recommendation was approved,
and the Mayor went to Washington and saw the heads of the Treasury,
War, and Navy departments, — Cobb, Floyd, and Toucey, — three men who
occupy a bad eminence among American cabinet officers. They were ex-
tremely gracious to the representative of Boston, and immediately complied
with his request to detail General Totten, chief of the engineer corps, Pro-
schools. When only thirteen years of age he branch of the State Legislature (1847-48), and
was apprenticed to a maker of mathematical in- had been a delegate to the Constitutional Con-
struments, and at the time of his election to the vention of 1853.
mayoralty he had risen to a prominent position 1 [One is given in the folio edition of Drake's
among fhe business men of the city. He had Boston. See also Documents of the Massachusetts
served two terms as a member of the lower Senate, No. 186, 1859. — ED.]
264 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
fessor Bache, superintendent of the coast survey, and Commander Davis
of the Navy, to make the proposed examination. During the seven years
following, the commissioners made ten reports, which have been of im-
mense value in securing appropriations from the National Government for
the improvement of the harbor, and in preventing by wise legislation any
further encroachments upon the ship-channels.1
The national census of 1860 gave the city a population of 177,992. The
valuation of real and personal property for purposes of taxation amounted
to $276,861,000. The amount of tax raised for State, county, and city pur-
poses was $2,530,000; and the rate was $8.99 on the $1,000. The funded
city debt amounted to $8,491,599.
In the latter part of this year another collision occurred between the
Abolitionists and those who were opposed to the Antislavery agitation.
Through the instrumentality of some rather obscure individuals a meeting
was called in Tremont Temple, on December 3, to commemorate the anni-
versary of the execution of John Brown, and to consider the question,
How can American Slavery be abolished? The election of a Republican
President, and the threatening attitude assumed by the South, had the
effect of making a good many men, especially those whose business inter-
ests would be endangered by any disturbance of the established order of
things, deprecate any expressions in this section of the country which would
appear to identify the Republican party with the supporters of John Brown ;
but in undertaking forcibly to prevent such expressions they only scattered
the coals and propagated the fire. The promoters of this meeting, having
hired the hall for a legal purpose, had a right to be protected in its use;
but the city authorities did not protect them. A large number of persons
opposed to the objects of the meeting quietly entered the hall as soon as
the doors were open, elected their own chairman and secretary, and adopted
a series of resolutions, in which John Brown and all " aiders and abettors
in his nefarious enterprise " were heartily denounced ; and it was declared
that the people of this city " had submitted too long in allowing irrespon-
sible persons and political demagogues of every description to hold public
meetings to disturb the public peace and misrepresent us abroad." " They
have become a nuisance," the resolutions said, "which in self-defence we
are determined shall henceforward be summarily abated." In the midst of
the confusion consequent upon these proceedings the chief of police en-
tered the hall accompanied by several trustees of the building, and stated
that he had orders from the Mayor to dismiss the meeting and to clear the
hall ; which he proceeded to do. In the evening the Antislavery people
held a meeting in a small church for colored people at the West End,
and although riotous demonstrations were made in the streets, the police
force was sufficient to preserve order. It was known that the Mayor had
taken the precaution to have two companies of cavalry under arms at
1 For further details in regard to the meas- the chapter on " Boston Harbor " in Vpl. IV. ;
ures taken for the preservation of the harbor, see also City Documents, 1859-66.
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS. 265
their armories to act in case of emergency. On the following morning
the Advertiser said : —
" The cry of ' free speech,' which will no doubt be set up on behalf of those who
yesterday saw their meeting taken out of their hands, can find little support among
unprejudiced observers. . . . Sensitive as the chord is which any appeal for free
speech touches, it will hardly vibrate in response to the appeals of those who claim
that glorious privilege only to abuse it ; and what abuse of it could be more flagrant
or more deserve condemnation than to use it simply as the means -of adding to a great
national excitement the peril of misleading one section of the country as to the senti-
ment which pervades the other, and embittering still further that controversy which
now divides the States of the Union."
This may be taken as a fair expression of the sentiments of moderate
Republicans of that day.
In the charter election of December, 1860, political feeling ran very
high. Joseph Milner Wightman1 was the candidate of both wings of the
Democratic party and of the Old Line Whigs. Moses Kimball was the Re-
publican candidate. The Webster Whigs were still a power in Boston, both
socially and politically, and they threw the whole weight of their influence
against Mr. Kimball on account of his action as a member of the board of
aldermen that refused the use of Faneuil Hall in 1851 for the Webster recep-
tion. Mr. Wightman, who had formerly acted with the Whig party, but
who had been carried into the Democratic ranks by the Antislavery agita-
tion, was elected by a majority of over three thousand votes.
As an executive officer Mr. Wightman was not wanting in energy or in
honesty of purpose ; but he lacked dignity and discretion. His administra-
tion fell upon an important period in our municipal history. The extraordi-
nary demands upon the city authorities, growing out of the war, enlarged the
powers and duties of the mayoralty to an unprecedented extent, and raised
many questions new to municipal legislation. It required a man of much
more than ordinary ability to manage the affairs of the city at such a time
to the satisfaction of a community which had been favored with chief magis-
trates who were generally dignified and sometimes wise. But while Mr.
Wightman was not a man of more than ordinary ability, he possessed a
good deal of energy and enthusiasm, and it was a time when energy and
1 He was born in Boston on Oct. 19, 1812, duction of water into the city first led him to
and was the son of English parents. At the take an interest in local affairs. He was ex-
early age of ten he had been obliged, by the tremely active in promoting the scheme which
death of his father, to leave school and become was finally carried out, and from that time forth
apprenticed to a machinist. While serving out he has had a conspicuous part in municipal
the terms of his indenture he eagerly availed politics. He was a prominent member of the
himself of every opportunity to acquire a knowl- school committee for ten years (1845-55), anc^ a
edge of mathematics, geometry, natural philos- member of the board of aldermen from April,
ophy, and mechanical engineering ; and soon 1856, when he was elected to fill a vacancy,
after coming of age he went into business as to January, 1859. In both these positions he
a manufacturer of philosophical apparatus. The performed services which have been of perma-
discussion of the question concerning the intro- nent value to the city.
VOL. III. — 34.
266 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
enthusiasm were wanted. He was put into the office by those who had
been opposed to the election of a Republican President, but no one ever
had occasion to charge him with lukewarmness in responding to the de-
mands of the national administration for means to put down the Rebellion.
The Antislavery agitators, who were indignant over the failure of a Re-
publican mayor fully to protect their freedom of speech, looked with con-
siderable alarm upon the accession to power of a Democrat who might be
inclined to shut them up altogether ; and it seemed to them that the time
had arrived to call in country Republicanism, which was of a more radical
type than city Republicanism, to redress the balance. On Jan. 21, 1861, an
order was introduced into the State Senate for the appointment of a joint
special committee to consider the expediency of amending the charter of
Boston so that its police should be appointed by the authorities of the
State. While the order was under consideration, on January 24, the Anti-
slavery Society held its annual meeting in Tremont Temple. The galleries
and the rear of the hall were filled with persons who interrupted the pro-
ceedings by hisses and groans. The Mayor was called upon by the officers
of the meeting to suppress the disturbance. He sent thirty policemen,
but they made no serious effort to preserve order. Finally, on the writ-
ten request of the trustees of the building, who feared injury to their
property, the Mayor went to the meeting, accompanied by the chief of
police, and under his instructions the galleries were cleared and order re-
stored. As soon as he withdrew the disturbance was renewed, and the meet-
ing was then adjourned until evening, with a view to having the admission
to the hall regulated by tickets. Some of the disturbers announced their
determination to remain in the building until the evening meeting was held ;
and the Mayor, being apprehensive of a riot, instructed the chief of police
to clear the hall, close the doors, and prevent any meeting from being held
in the evening. There was no such riotous spirit abroad as would justify
such an arbitrary measure. The police might have preserved order if they
had been properly instructed so to do by their superiors. After such an
affair the proposition to place the control of the city police in the hands of
the State authorities was favored by a good many persons who had no love
for the Abolitionists. A committee of the General Court was appointed,
and a great deal of testimony was taken in regard to the condition of
the police force and the improper influences to which it was subjected by
the mayor and aldermen ; but although a precedent for the action proposed
had been established by the New York Legislature, and had thus far worked
well, the sentiment in favor of local self-government was too strong to be
overcome even by the fervid rhetoric of the Antislavery leaders, and it was
decided to let Boston manage her own affairs until her incapacity for so
doing had been more fully demonstrated. The question was brought up
several times in after years, but always with the same result.
Soon after the war broke out, the city was called upon to appropriate
money for a variety of purposes not authorized by existing laws. To have
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS. 267
refused to appropriate the money on the ground of a want of authority
would have seriously impeded the work of furnishing men and supplies for
the army. It is to the credit of the city authorities, and especially of the
Mayor, that they did not hesitate to take the responsibility of using the
city's money to do whatever was necessary to minister to the comfort of
the soldiers and of the soldiers' families. Many persons who received com-
missions to organize military companies had no means to provide quarters
or subsistence for their recruits, and the Governor had no power at that
time to establish camps where the volunteers might be maintained, drilled,
and disciplined at the expense of the State. The city provided recruiting
stations and paid for the subsistence of the men until they were mustered
into the service of the United States. Uniforms and other clothing were
also provided for the Boston volunteers ; and regiments from other States,
and from other portions of this State, passing through the city to the
seat of war, were welcomed and refreshed on the Common or in Faneuil
Hall. For these purposes about one hundred thousand dollars were ex-
pended from the city treasury during the year 1861. Among other
measures instituted by the city council of 1861 for the benefit of the
volunteers and their families was one which involved only a trifling ex-
pense to the city, but which was of incalculable value to the persons
concerned. Arrangements were made by which the commanders of com-
panies or regiments were enabled with little trouble to collect a portion
of the money which their men received from the government paymaster
and transmit it, without expense, to the mayor, to be deposited by him in a
savings-bank, or paid to such persons as the soldier might designate. A
very large amount of money was transmitted in this way, and many poor
families had occasion to bless the Mayor for saving them from the necessity
of receiving aid in a form which made them feel that they were objects of
charity. In the following year the benefit of this system of allotments
was extended by an act of the Legislature to the families of all the Mas-
sachusetts volunteers, the money being transmitted to the State treasurer,
and by him distributed to the several city and town treasurers ; but some
of the Boston regiments continued to send their money directly to the
Mayor until the close of the war, as it reached its destination more quickly
in that way.
In his address to the city government at the beginning of 1862, the
Mayor strongly recommended the erection of a new city hall. The subject
had been before the city council many times during the preceding twelve
years, but the two branches had not been able to agree either upon a site or
upon the plans for a building. Although there was strong opposition to
entering upon any new enterprises while the resources of the people were
being so heavily taxed to maintain the national government, a majority of
the city council this year voted to build a new hall on the site of the old
one, at an estimated expense of $160,000, and the corner-stone was laid
on Dec. 22, 1862.
268 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
The requisitions made in July of this year for men to serve in the army
created almost a panic and led to the offer of heavy local bounties for vol-
unteers. The city began by paying a bounty of one hundred dollars for
men credited to its quota; and afterward, in order to compete with other
municipalities which were offering much larger amounts, the payment was
increased to two hundred dollars. The city was able to meet the demands
made upon it without resorting to a draft ; but by the end of the year nearly
a million dollars had been expended in premiums for volunteers.
The election of December, 1862, resulted in the defeat of Mr. Wight-
man, and the reinstatement of Mr. Frederic W. Lincoln in the mayor's
office.
The expenditures for war purposes during, the years 1861 and 1862,
although illegal and often extravagant, were never called in question by the
people ; but what they did question was the expediency of erecting public
buildings, widening and extending streets, and spending the city's money
on other works which, in view of the tremendous crisis through which the
country was passing, might well be postponed. The expenditures for what
is known as "city junketing" began to assume rather formidable propor-
tions about this time, and to excite the comments of the taxpayers. Junket-
ing is not a modern vice. It has been the custom from the earliest times for
the city magistrates to have occasional feasts — or, as Washington Irving
calls them, gormandizings — at the public expense; and so the name of
alderman, originally used to designate the elderman, — the man of the high-
est wisdom and experience in the Teutonic community, — has come to be
applied to the man of
" Fair round belly, with good capon lined."
But while the ancient alderman was satisfied with an occasional feast, his
modern prototype seems filled with the desire to feast all the time ; and the
question as to the extent to which this desire should be gratified has fre-
quently entered into the municipal elections in this city, and has sometimes
determined the choice of a chief magistrate.
Mr. Lincoln was elected to bring the city government back to a more
careful expenditure of the public money; and so well satisfied were the
people with his efforts in that direction, that they continued him in office
through four successive terms.
During the latter part of the year 1862 the cities and towns of the Com-
monwealth had engaged in a ruinous competition for men to fill their sev-
eral quotas under the calls of the President for additional troops. The
raising of money by taxation for the purpose of paying bounties was
illegal, and might have been stopped at any time on the application of ten
taxpayers to the highest court of the Commonwealth ; but the local au-
thorities were sustained by the great body of the people in almost any meas-
ure that was likely to avert a draft ; and no man was willing, or rather no
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS. 269
man dared, to throw any obstacles in the way of procuring volunteers for the
army. When the Legislature met in January, 1863, the Governor recom-
mended that bounties should be equalized and assumed by the State, to be
paid by a tax on the property and polls of all the people. An act was
accordingly passed forbidding towns and cities from raising or expending
money for the purpose of offering or paying bounties to volunteers under
future calls of the President, and a State bounty of fifty dollars was offered
in lieu of all local bounties. In the summer of 1863, the city having failed
to meet the requisitions for men by voluntary enlistments, it was found nec-
essary to resort to a draft. On the afternoon of July 14 two assistant pro-
vost marshals were serving notices upon the men who had been drafted for
military service, and who lived in rather a disreputable quarter at the North
End of the city, when they were suddenly assaulted by a woman whose
husband was numbered among the conscripts. The cries of this infuriated
woman acted like a preconcerted signal upon the people in the neighbor-
hood. In an instant the narrow, crooked streets in the vicinity of the great
manufactory of the Boston Gas-Light Company were filled with a mob of
which women were the leaders, — the most frightful of all mobs. The
marshals fled for their lives, and the local patrolmen, coming to their rescue,
were set upon and beaten nearly to death. One gallant officer, a man of
noble physique and of undaunted courage, attempted to make head against
the terrible throng, but he was borne down, trampled upon, and maimed for
life. The police rolls of the city still bear his name ; and although he has
never been able to do another day's service, no taxpayer grudges him the
continued compensation of an active officer.
In a short time the whole North End of the city was in a state of revolt.
The police of the First Division retreated into their station, which was threat-
ened with assault. Then the city authorities saw that they had serious work
on hand. For two days previous a portion of the city of New York had been
under the control of a mob ; and although there had been some indications
of a disposition in this city to resist the enforcement of the draft, it was not
believed that there would be any concerted resistance. It appeared after-
wards that quite a formidable organization to resist the laws had been
partially formed ; but the leaders in that organization were probably as
much taken by surprise at the sudden outbreak on the afternoon of the
fourteenth as were the city authorities. Having taken possession of the
streets at the North End, and surrounded the police station, the mob paused
and awaited the next move of the city authorities. The composition of
the mob was changed in the mean time. The men came from their work in
the gas-house and elsewhere and took the places of the women. They pur-
posed to test the question whether the Government had a right to drag them
from their homes to fight in a cause in which they did not believe. The
news of the great uprising in New York had been circulated among them,
and its temporary success greatly stimulated their determination to resist.
" I'd rather fight here, where I can go home to dinner," said one, " than in
270 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
the Southern swamps, where they don't have regular meals." But as a
whole the assemblage was not a humorous one : it was taciturn, and took
rather a serious view of the situation.
The Mayor was first informed of the disturbance by the marshal whose
assistants had been mobbed. He was soon satisfied from the police reports
which followed that extraordinary measures must be taken to preserve the
peace. He acted with great promptness and resolution. There were only
three local militia organizations in the city at that time : the independent
company of Cadets (the prescriptive body-guard of the Governor), a bat-
talion of cavalry, and a battery of light artillery. To these the Mayor
issued his precepts, as authorized by the laws of the State, directing them to
report to him forthwith, armed and equipped for service. This force was
strengthened by several military organizations then in camp at Readville,
preparing for service in the field, and by detachments from the heavy artil-
lery and infantry companies on duty at the forts in the harbor. The Cooper-
Street Armory, occupied by a light battery, was situated in the very midst of
the riotous populace. The members of the local company had assembled
quietly in the armory during the afternoon, without attracting much atten-
tion. It was about seven o'clock in the evening when a company of United
States artillery from Fort Warren marched down into the disturbed quarter
to join the local battery. It was hooted and hissed while on the way, but
was allowed to enter the armory without serious opposition. Then the mob
closed in around the building in a dense mass, and began to break the win-
dows. A lieutenant of the light battery, who attempted to pass through
the crowd, was beaten and trampled upon. The men sent out to rescue
him could regain the armory only by firing and using their bayonets. Then
the building was assaulted in earnest ; the brick sidewalks and cobble-stone
pavements were torn up and hurled against the doors. A citizen standing
at one of the windows inside the armory was killed by a pistol-shot. Just
as the mob was about to effect an entrance through the front doors, which
they had partially battered down, a loaded cannon was fired from within. Its
charge tore through the mass and demolished a part of the opposite house-
front. There was a moment's pause, and then the attack was renewed ; but
the firing of the infantry from the windows and doors dampened the ardor
of the assailants, and a diversion was presently created by the proposition to
sack Reed's gun-store, in Dock Square. In the mean time, the other militia
organizations had been brought together, and were about to march to the
Cooper-Street Armory, with the Mayor at their head, when word was re-
ceived of the movement in the direction of Dock Square. A plan of the
Square as it existed at that time, with the great number of narrow streets
and lanes radiating from it, bears a very close resemblance to the centre
of a spider's web. If the rioters had obtained arms from the numerous
gun-shops in the neighborhood, and established themselves in this spot,
they might, with intelligent leaders, have held the approaches against a
greatly superior force; but as they came pouring in from the North End,
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS.
271
they were met by an advance guard of policemen, who held them in
check until the Mayor with his military force came up and effectually dis-
persed them. One gun-store was broken into and a considerable quantity
of arms taken ; but the men who took them were scattered before they
could make use of their weapons.
That was the end of the famous draft- riot in Boston. The whiff of
grape-shot at the Cooper-Street Armory and the repulse at Dock Square
disheartened the rioters. Those who had been drafted concluded that it
would be less hazardous to fight the Southern rebels than to fight Mayor
Lincoln. There were some slight disturbances in different sections of the
city during the succeeding twenty-four hours, and a considerable portion of
the military force was kept on duty for several days ; but the spirit of the
mob had been effectually crushed before midnight of the fourteenth. The
number of rioters killed is unknown, as the bodies were in most cases con-
veyed away secretly and buried without any official permit.
There was no further attempt to obstruct the operation of the Conscrip-
tion Act. Of the twenty-six thousand one hundred and nineteen 1 men
furnished by Boston for service in the army and navy, it appears that only
seven hundred and thirteen were drafted. In the year 1864 the city ob-
tained, through an act of Congress, credit for a large number of men who
had enlisted in the navy since the beginning of the war; and although that
gave a surplus of about five thousand men to offset any future requisitions,
recruiting was continued with unabated zeal until the end.
In 1864 an important and a much needed improvement was made in the
municipal organization for the relief of the poor. Under the provisions of
the first city charter one person was elected in each ward of the city to be an
overseer of the poor, and the persons thus chosen constituted the board of
overseers, with all the powers formerly exercised by the town board. In
the administration of their department they claimed the right to spend
money to any extent and in any manner they saw fit. Grocers, coal-dealers,
and others got elected on the board for the sole purpose of furnishing, either
directly or indirectly, the articles for which the city paid. Mayor Quincy
attempted in 1824 to obtain additional legislation by which the doings of
the board would be brought under the supervision of the city council, but
he failed ; and his successors who afterward renewed the attempt failed,
for the reason that the people could not be made to understand why the
persons elected by them to the board of overseers were not as trustworthy
as those elected to the city council. The change effected in 1864 was due
1 The Mayor in his message to the City to the message. (City Document No. I, 1866.) I
Council, at the beginning of the year 1866, gives have not been able to find either in the city
this as the total number of men furnished by clerk's office or the adjutant-general's office any-
Boston, as far as ascertained, at that date : thing more complete or accurate than the state-
army, seventeen thousand one hundred and ment furnished by the Mayor. [See General
seventy-five; navy, eight thousand nine hun- Palfrey's chapter on " Boston Soldiery," in the
dred and forty-four. The several organizations present volume, and Schouler's History of Massa-
in which they enlisted are given in the appendix chusetts in the Civil War. — ED.|
272
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
more, perhaps, to Alderman Norcross than to any other person. As the
chairman of a committee which investigated the subject in 1862, he ex-
posed the loose and irresponsible methods of the old board so effectually
that the city council petitioned the General Court for authority to appoint
the overseers and to audit their accounts. An act giving that authority was
passed April 2, 1864; and the new board, composed of honest and capable
men, was organized July 4 following, with Robert C. Winthrop as chairman.
.On September 18, 1865, the city government took possession of the new
City Hall, on School Street, and listened to an admirable address by Mayor'
Lincoln. Since January, 1863, the mayor, the city council, and some of the
heads of departments had occupied the building belonging to the Massa-
chusetts Charitable Mechanics' Association, on the corner of Chauncy and
Bedford streets. The new hall was well fitted for the accommodation of
the government of that day ; but the growth of the city has since made it
necessary to hire outside offices for many of the departments.
On April 4, 1865, an act was passed by the Legislature authorizing the
city to build the new reservoir, since known as the Chestnut Hill Reservoir.
This enlargement of the water-works became necessary to save the water
which was wasted at the lake when it overflowed, and to have a larger
supply than the Brookline reservoir to draw from in case of accident to
the aqueduct. The cost of this work, including the handsome driveway
which was constructed around the reservoir, was $2,450,000. The city
was also authorized the same year to cut a street through Fort Hill. This
led to the entire removal of the hill. Washington Square, which crowned
its summit, — once an attractive green spot, surrounded by the fine houses
of wealthy residents, — had come to be a turfless, unwholesome piece of
ground, surrounded by tenement houses of the lowest class. The work
of cutting through the street was begun Oct. 15, 1866, and the whole ele-
vation was removed by July 31, 1872. The amount of earth carried off,—
partly by an elevated railroad, to fill Atlantic Avenue and the docks on the
landward side, and partly by carts, to raise the grade of the territory which
had had its drainage impaired by the filling of the Back-Bay basin, — was
five hundred and forty-seven thousand six hundred and twenty-eight cubic
yards. The total cost of the improvement was $1,575,000. The mayor
and aldermen had extraordinary powers from the General Court to take
private property and assess the damages.
In the year 1866 the Legislature gave the city what it had been long pray-
ing for, — that is, power to lay out, widen, and grade streets, and to assess
upon each of the estates abutting on such streets a sum not exceeding half
the amount which the estate is benefited by the improvement. Previous
to the passage of this act the street widenings in the old portion of the city
had generally been made by taking portions of estates where the owners
had given notice of intention to build. By pursuing this policy the ex-
pense of paying for buildings and for breaking up the occupants' business
was saved ; but it was nevertheless a very expensive way of doing the work,
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS. 273
as the assessments for damages on account of taking property in that way
were generally very heavy, and the city was unable to get the benefit of the
widening in the increased value of the property for purposes of taxation
until the improvement was completed. The whole amount expended by the
city for laying out, widening, and extending streets, from June I, 1822, to
May i, 1880, was $26,691,495.85. Had the city government steadily ad-
hered to the " prospective plans for the improvement of the streets," adopted
in 1825 under the administration of Mayor Quincy, a considerable portion
of this enormous expense would have been saved.
In the charter election of December, 1866, Otis Norcross,1 the Republi-
can candidate, was successful, receiving nine hundred more votes than his
Democratic opponent, Dr. Nathaniel B. Shurtleff. Mr. Norcross held the
office of mayor only one year. His failure to receive the customary re-
election for a second term was due, perhaps, to a certain stiffness of virtue,
which, in political life at least, seldom receives the reward it merits. His
administration is chiefly to be commended for what it did not do. It fell
upon a time when some very sensible people were congratulating the
country on the blessing of being in debt, and when municipal aid was
sought and often granted for the promotion of private enterprises. A
great number of projects, involving the expenditure of millions of dollars,
were under consideration when Mr. Norcross took office ; and had he not
been a man of considerable firmness, one who had an intelligent idea of
the scope and purpose of municipal government, and old-fashioned notions
concerning municipal indebtedness, the city would have been committed
to some enterprises of very doubtful expediency. Among other measures
which claimed the attention of the government was one for the improve-
ment of the flats on the northerly shore of South Boston, extending from
Fort Point Channel to Castle Island. The improvement was intended partly
for the benefit of the harbor, by deepening the ship-channel and increasing
the movement of the water therein, so as to prevent it from shoaling, and
partly for the direct benefit of commerce, by providing additional facilities
for the delivery at deep water of freight from the West. It was proposed
that the city should enter into a contract with the Commonwealth to fill
these flats, build docks, streets, sewers, and bridges, and reimburse itself by
the sale of the property to corporations and individuals. It was a magnifi-
cent scheme, but the Mayor did not believe that the city ought to under-
take to carry it out alone. He endeavored, and successfully, to secure the
1 Mr. Norcross was the descendant of Jere- of correction, a member of the school commit-
miah Norcross, who came to this country in tee, president of the water board, treasurer to
1638, and shortly afterward settled at Water- the overseers of the poor, and for three years
town. He was born in Boston Nov. 2, 1 81 1, and (1862-1864) a member of the board of alder-
was educated at private schools and at the Bos- men. In all these positions he performed ser-
ton high school. At the time of his election he vices of lasting value to the city, by introducing
was one of the leading merchants of the city, better business methods, and raising the stand-
He possessed a thorough knowledge of muni- ard of official duty,
cipal affairs, having been a director of the house
VOL. III. — 35.
274 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
co-operation of all the parties interested, — the State, the city, and the
railroad corporations which desired additional terminal facilities. Had
the city undertaken to do the whole work, it would have been called upon
to spend an enormous amount of money, and the property would probably
have been thrown upon the market, before it could be utilized so as to cover
the cost of the improvement.1
In his inaugural address the Mayor called attention to the unhealthy con-
dition of the territory lying south of the Public Garden, caused by the want
of suitable drainage. This territory was on the border of the Back Bay,
and had been built upon before a grade was established, and when there
was a right of drainage into a basin in which the water did not rise more
than three feet above low-water. The filling of the basin by the Common-
wealth and the Water-Power Company made it necessary to extend the
sewers to points where the natural rise of the tide prevented the sewers
from discharging their contents during the greater part of the day. The
drainage of the whole territory lying west of Washington Street, between
the Public Garden and the Roxbury line, was injuriously affected by the
Back Bay improvement; but it was only within the district lying between
Boylston Street and Dover Street, which had been built upon many years
before any scheme for filling the adjoining flats had -been seriously con-
sidered, that the injury was of a character to call for immediate action.
The householders in that locality thought that the city should bear all the
expense of providing suitable drainage, but the city authorities took the
ground that the estates should be assessed for a portion of the benefit
which would accrue from raising the grade of the territory. The subject
had been discussed for some years, and with much bitterness. Mr. Nor-
cross recommended an application to the Legislature for special authority
to abate the nuisance and to recover a portion of the expense for so doing.
His recommendation was adopted ; and an act was passed during the ses-
sion of 1867 giving the city authority to take that portion of the territory
known as the Church-Street District, raise the grade, and either reconvey
the several estates to their former owners upon payment of certain ex-
penses, or sell them to the highest bidder. The act contained provisions
new to the legislation of the State ; but it was drawn with great care by
an eminent jurist, and it enabled the city to carry out a great sanitary im-
provement without hardship to the fiumerous individuals whose property
was taken, and without large expense to the city. In the following year
the provisions of the act were extended to the territory known as the
Suffolk-Street District, thereby covering all the low territory lying between
the Public Garden and Dover Street. The net cost to the city of carrying
out these improvements amounted to $2,558,745. Forty-seven acres of
territory, occupied by one thousand two hundred and thirty buildings, and
two thousand one hundred and fifty-five families, were included within the
provisions of the legislative acts. The streets, alleys, and back-yards were
1 The plan of improvement which was adopted is described in the chapter on " Boston Harbor."
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS. 275
raised to the grade of eighteen feet above mean low-water ; the cellars were
raised to the grade of twelve feet ; and the buildings were raised to cor-
respond to the grade of the streets. It took four hundred and five thou-
sand three hundred and four cubic yards of gravel, mostly brought from
the country by steam power, to do the filling. The work was not entered
upon until June, 1868, after Mr. Norcross had gone out of office; and it was
not completed until 1872.
Near the close of the year 1867 the city council passed orders approv-
ing certain plans for the erection of a new hospital for the insane, on a lot
of land purchased for the purpose several years before in the town of
VVinthrop. The hospital at South Boston, erected in 1839, and enlarged in
1846, was reported by the directors for public institutions to be over-
crowded at times, and to be lacking in many of the conveniences which
medical experts deemed essential to the proper care of the insane. The
Mayor, while recognizing the need of some improvements in the accom-
modations furnished to the city's patients, was strongly opposed to the
erection of a hospital on the exposed headland at Winthrop, and was op-
posed to the erection, on any site, of a building projected on the magnifi-
cent plans which had received the approval of the city council. He vetoed
the orders, and saved the city from building and maintaining a very ex-
pensive institution which it was clearly the duty of the State to provide,
and which the State did provide some ten years later.
Among the notable events of this year was the annexation of the city of
Roxbury to Boston. The subject had long been under consideration.
Commissioners appointed by the governments of the two cities in 1866 to
confer upon the subject reported early in 1867 in favor of the project, and
on June I the Legislature passed an act, to take effect upon its acceptance
by a majority of the voters in the two cities, providing that all the territory
then comprised within the limits of Roxbury, with the inhabitants and es-
tates therein, should be annexed to and made a part of the city of Boston
and the county of Suffolk, and should be subject to the same municipal
regulations, obligations, and liabilities, and entitled to the same immunities
in all respects as Boston. On the second Monday in September the inhab-
itants of the two cities voted to accept the act,1 and on the first Monday
in January following Roxbury became a part of Boston, constituting the
thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth wards.
Roxbury at the time of its annexation contained about thirty thousand2
inhabitants, and real and personal property valued for purposes of taxation
at $26,551,700. Most of the wealthy residents had their places of business
in Boston ; and the controlling argument for annexation in this case, and in
the case of other municipal corporations subsequently annexed, was that
many men doing business in Boston were forced by its limited area to live
1 Boston: yeas, 4,633; nays, 1,059. Roxbury: 2 Twenty-eight thousand four hundred and
yeas, 1,832; nays 592. [See Mr. Drake's chapter twenty-six, by the census of 1865.
in the present volume. — ED.]
276 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
outside of the city, and to lose the privilege of voting on questions of local
government where they had the larger interest. Another argument in favor
of the union, and one which had some influence probably, was that the
relations between the two municipalities had recently become much more
intimate through the occupation of the territory reclaimed from the sea on
both sides of the narrow neck of land which had formerly united them by
only a very slender tie.
The municipal election held on Dec. 9, 1867, resulted in the choice of
Dr. Nathaniel Bradstreet Shurtleflf, the Democratic candidate, for mayor,
who received about five hundred more votes than Mr. Norcross. Dr. Shurt-
leff l had long sought the office of mayor, but not, it may be said, from
any unworthy motives. He had spent a great deal of time in the study of
the early institutions of the New England colonies, and had a very intimate
and peculiar knowledge of Boston, its history, its traditions, its govern-
ment, and its people. To be the chief magistrate of the town he knew
so well, and for which he had the love that an antiquary feels for the sub-
ject of his studies, seemed to him a very great distinction. His fellow-
citizens, recognizing his sincerity of purpose, kept him in the office for
three terms, although he lacked the more important qualifications for a
good executive. The constitution of his mind was so peculiar that long
contact with men and affairs failed to give him any real knowledge of hu-
man character, or of the proper methods of government. He took con-
siderable pride in the fact that he was the first mayor of Boston who had
always belonged to the Democratic party; and it appears that he is the
only mayor of Boston, up to the present day, who can claim that distinction.
Mr. Wightman, Mr. Gaston, Mr. Cobb, and Mr. Prince, who belonged to
the Democratic party at the time of their election, had formerly been mem-
bers of the Whig party. But it cannot be said that Dr. Shurtleff used the
office to further the interests of any political organization. He gave so
little satisfaction to his party associates that they opposed his re-election for
a third term, and he was taken up and elected by the Citizens, who saw in
the Democratic opposition an element dangerous to good government.
His administration was marked by considerable activity on the part of
the city government, especially in the matter of widening and extending
streets in the business portion of the city. In 1868 Atlantic Avenue was
laid out across the docks between Fort Point Channel and the East Boston
Ferry ways, covering almost exactly the site of the ancient " barricade," 2
which connected the north battery with the south battery, or Sconce. The
cost of this improvement amounted to nearly two and a half million dol-
lars. In 1869 Broadway, the main thoroughfare through South Boston, was
extended across Fort Point Channel to Albany Street, at an expense of
1 He was born in Boston on June 29, 1810, is printed in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., Decem-
and graduated at Harvard College in 1831. A ber, 1874, p. 389.
brief memoir of Dr. Shurtleff, by C. C. Smith, 2 [See Vol. II., p. 502. — Eo.J
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS. 277
nearly a million dollars; and Federal Street, which had long been the
principal thoroughfare from the old portion of the city to South Boston,
was widened at an expense of about half a million dollars. These im-
provements were made necessary by the rapid growth of South Boston.
During the ten years between 1860 and 1870, the population of that division
of the city had increased more than fifty per cent, and the taxable value
of property had more than doubled.
A similar development had been going on in East Boston during the
same period. For many years there had been great dissatisfaction with the
accommodations furnished by the corporations which operated the ferries
between East Boston and the city proper. The People's Ferry Company,
chartered in 1853, conveyed all its property, except its boats and franchise,
to the city in 1859. The interest on the amount paid for the property was
in the nature of a subsidy to the company; but owing to the bad location
of the ferry landings, and to bad management on the part of the directors,
the ferry did not pay its running expenses, and in 1864 the boats were with-
drawn and sold, and the city took possession of the ferry-ways, which it had
purchased in 1859. The East Boston Ferry Company was chartered in 1852,
and, having obtained possession of the ferry landings most convenient for
public travel, was enabled to do a business which gave it a small return on
the capital invested. But the people of East Boston were unwilling that
any corporation should make money out of the highway which, as they
said, they were obliged to use in going from their homes to pay their taxes
at the City Hall. The large amount of money expended for bridges to
South Boston was used as an argument in favor of establishing a free
bridge or free ferries to East Boston. In 1868 the Legislature chartered
a company to build a bridge over tidewater between the ferry landings ;
but the United States authorities interposed to prevent the project from
being carried out, as a bridge would have obstructed the passage of war
vessels to and from the Navy Yard at Charlestown. In 1869 the city en-
tered into a contract with the East Boston Ferry Company to purchase its
franchise and property for the sum of $275,000; and on April I, 1870, the
city government took possession of the ferry, and has since operated it
through the agency of a board of directors elected by the city council.
The tolls are fixed by the board of aldermen, at a rate which pays a little
more than the actual running expenses.
On June 4, 1869, the inhabitants of Dorchester and Boston voted to
accept an act of the Legislature uniting the two corporations;1 and on the
first Monday in January following the ancient town, which received its
name in the same order of the court of assistants that gave Boston its name
and its corporate existence, became the sixteenth ward of the city. The
State census of 1865 gave Dorchester a population of ten thousand seven
hundred and seven; and the national census of 1870 gave the same terri-
1 Vote of Boston : yeas, 3,420 ; nays, 565. Barrows' chapter on " Dorchester in the Last
Dorchester: yeas, 928; nays, 726. [See Mr. Hundred Years," in the present volume. — ED.)
278 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
tory a population of twelve thousand two hundred and fifty-nine. The old
town organization was maintained in all its strength and purity up to the
time of the union with the city. Most of the inhabitants belonged to the
well-to-do class, who had an interest alike in their native town and in
the city to which they resorted for business. The valuation of the real and
personal property in Dorchester for purposes of taxation in 1869 amounted
to $20,315,700.
The valuation of property in the whole city on May i, 1870, amounted
to $584,089,400, an increase of $307,228,400 during the previous decade,
or 1 10.96 per cent. The total funded debt of the city at that date amounted
to $18,687,350.91. The total tax levy made on May i, 1870, amounted to
$8,636,862, an increase of $6,106,862 since 1860; and the rate of taxation
had risen during the same period from $8.99 to $13.65 on $1,000. The
ninth census of the United States, taken on June i, 1870, gave the city a
population of 250,526, divided as follows: native males, 79,599; native fe-
males, 82,941 ; foreign males, 40,318 ; foreign females, 47,668
By an act of the Legislature of 1870 an important amendment was made
to the city charter. All the powers formerly vested in the board of alder-
men, in relation to laying out, altering, or discontinuing streets or ways in
the city, were transferred to a board of street commissioners, consisting of
three persons, elected by the qualified voters of the city for a term of three
years, one to be elected each year. By subsequent enactments the powers
of the board have been somewhat curtailed. Where the estimated ex-
pense of the street improvement exceeds $10,000, the concurrence of the
city council is necessary to make the action of the commissioners binding;
and by a two-thirds vote of the members of each branch, the city council
may require the commissioners to lay out, alter, or discontinue any street.
The power to abate taxes was also transferred from the aldermen to the
commission. The establishment of this board was the beginning of some
important changes in the organization of the city government. In the
original organization the aldermen took the place of the selectmen, con-
stituting the executive board of the government, of which the mayor was
the chief officer. They also formed one branch of a council which took
the place of the town-meeting. The legislative and executive powers of the
corporation were therefore united in the same body. This was well enough
in a city of small size, with a homogeneous population; but in 1870 Bos-
ton had ceased to be a small city, and there was not that readiness on the
part of the substantial men in the community to serve the city gratuitously
which had been shown at an earlier day, when the service was less arduous,
and when it was felt to be more of a neighborly office. The aldermen who
happened to be in office, however, at the time any change was proposed
by which their powers or duties would be curtailed, generally put them-
selves in opposition to it ; and it was only when the departments which
they administered were found unequal to any emergency, that they gave
way to the popular demand for the transfer of their more important exec-
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS. 279
utive powers to persons specially selected for the purpose, and compensated
for their services. These changes, and the influences by which they were
brought about, will be described when I come to deal with the administra-
tions under which they occurred.
The charter election on Dec. 12, 1870, resulted in the choice of William
Gaston,1 the Democratic and Citizens' candidate, for mayor, who received
three thousand more votes than his Republican competitor, Mr. George O.
Carpenter. An able lawyer, and a man of high character, Mr. Gaston had
the respect of all classes in the community ; but he lacked that essential
requisite fora good executive, — determination. He made up his mind
with great difficulty, and it required a painful effort for him to act on any
new or important question. He held the office of mayor for two years,
and would have been re-elected for a third term had not an emergency
arisen calling for a more energetic chief magistrate.
The most important act of the city government during his administra-
tion was the adoption of an ordinance to establish a new board of health.
The city charter vested in the city council ample powers for the preserva-
tion of the public health, and authorized them to constitute either branch,
or any committee of their number, or any other persons appointed for the
purpose, a board of health for all or for particular purposes. For many
years the aldermen had constituted the board of health, and the chief
executive officer of the health department was elected annually by the city
council. In cases of emergency, such as the prevalence of contagious or
infectious diseases, the aldermen were aided by a board of consulting
physicians, who were also elected by the city council, and who, like the
aldermen, received no compensation for their services. As the city in-
creased in size many important questions affecting the public health were
constantly arising, — questions which the aldermen were not competent to
deal with ; but they were slow to recognize their incompetency, and were
quick to take offence at the advice tendered by their medical assistants.
As a consequence, the leading physicians refused to serve in a position
where they had no power to carry out the measures which they recom-
mended ; and the aldermen soon found themselves losing the respect
and confidence of the community. In the year 1871 a joint committee
appointed to investigate certain complaints relating to the sale of unwhole-
some meat found that there were no proper restrictions upon the intro-
duction of bad meat into the city markets, and that the health of the
inhabitants was endangered by the want of an efficient board of health. In
1 Mr. Gaston was the descendant of a Hu- the common council of that city five years (1849-
guenot family that came to this country in the 53), and its president two years (1852-53) ; was
first half of the eighteenth century; and was city solicitor five years (1856-60), and mayor two
born in South Killingly, Conn., on Oct. 3, 1820. years (1861-62). He had formerly been a mem-
He was graduated at Brown University, Provi- ber of the Whig party, but the Antislavery agi-
dence, R. I., in 1840, and began the practice of tation had carried him, with many of his eminent
law in Roxbury in 1846. He was a member of associates of the bar, into the Democratic ranks.
280 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
his address to the city council, at the beginning of 1872, Mr. Gaston urged
the passage of an ordinance to establish an independent board ; and his
recommendation was enforced later in the year by the neglect of the alder-
men to take any effective measures to check the small-pox, which prevailed
to an alarming extent. The aldermen were unable to withstand the force of
public opinion, and on December 2 an ordinance was passed authorizing
the mayor to appoint, with the approval of the city council, three persons
to constitute the board of health, to serve for a term of three years each.
As a sort of compromise, the duty of cleaning the streets and cesspools,
and collecting offal and ashes, — the work in which a considerable number
of laborers were employed, — was placed under the charge of a joint com-
mittee of the city council. The appointment of a superintendent of health,
a city physician, and a port physician, was given to the new board, but the
exercise of this power was subject to the approval of the mayor. Mr.
Gaston failed to make any appointments on the board before retiring from
office, and the duty of carrying the ordinance into effect devolved upon his
successor.
In the year 1871 the supply of water from Lake Cochituate was found
to be insufficient for the growing wants of the city, and a competent en-
gineer was appointed to make an examination of all sources of supply
within fifty miles of Boston. This examination resulted in an application
to the Legislature the following year for authority to take water from Sud-
bury River and Farm Pond. The authority was granted, and a temporary
connection was immediately made between Sudbury River and Lake Cochit-
uate, which furnished an adequate supply during the summer of 1872 ; but
this connection could not be made permanent without interfering with the
privileges of the mill-owners along the line of the river; and it became a
serious question for the government to consider, whether the need for an
additional supply of pure water was so imperative as to justify the very
heavy expense which would be involved by taking all the waters of the
river, within or above Framingham, as authorized by the act of the Legis-
lature. During the unusually dry season of 1874, a temporary connection
was made with the Mystic water works, which supplied Charlestown ; but
it was soon found that the connection could not be maintained without de-
priving Charlestown and its dependents of an adequate supply; and on
Jan. 2, 1875, orders were passed authorizing the Cochituate water board,
as the agent of the city, to take the waters of Sudbury River and Farm
Pond and conduct them by a separate conduit to Chestnut Hill Reservoir, a
distance of eighty-three thousand nine hundred and twelve feet. The city
is now receiving from this source a supply equal to twenty million gallons
daily, which can be doubled by the construction of additional storage
basins. The cost of the additional supply has already amounted to over
$5,000,000; and the entire cost of the Cochituate and Sudbury works on
April 30, 1880, amounted to $16,341,908.25. The cost of constructing the
Mystic works amounted at that date to $1,614,648. The average daily
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS. 281
consumption of water during the year 1879 amounted to 34,579,370 gal-
lons, of which 8,883,470 were drawn from Mystic Lake, and 25,695,900
from Cochituate Lake and Sudbury River.
In 1871 the Legislature established a new department in the city govern-
ment, known as the Department for the Survey and Inspection of Buildings.
The chief officer is appointed by the mayor, with the approval of the city
council, for a term of three years ; and the assistant inspectors and clerk are
appointed by the chief officer with the approval of the mayor. The depart-
ment had been organized but a few months when the great fire of 1872
occurred, and at the extra session of the Legislature which followed, the
provisions of the building law were greatly modified with a view to prevent
the use of combustible materials in the construction of buildings within
certain limits to be prescribed from time to time by the city council.
A description of the great fire does not fall within the scope of this
chapter, therefore I shall refer to it only so far as may be necessary to show
the effect it had upon the city government. There was a good deal of
dissatisfaction with the management of the fire department during the fire,
and this dissatisfaction subsequently found expression in the defeat of the
Mayor when nominated for another term, and in the reorganization of the
department. It is natural that the people should hold the chief executive
of the government largely responsible for the efficiency of the executive
departments under him, although by the letter of the law he may have little
or no control over them. Mayor Quincy (the senior) was quick to see that
if anything went wrong in any department of the government (the mayor's
duties were then partly legislative and partly executive) he would be held
accountable, and he felt that the people were right in holding him account-
able. Therefore he made the " glittering generalities " concerning the
powers of the executive "blazing ubiquities." By the charter of 1854
the powers of the mayor — especially in the matter of controlling legislation
— were somewhat curtailed ; but still there is enough in the general powers
given him as the chief executive officer of the corporation, and in the in-
junction " to be vigilant and active at all times in causing the laws for the
government of the city to be duly executed and put in force," to justify the
people in looking to him for such prompt and energetic action as the emer-
gency may call for. Mr. Gaston failed to make his paramount authority as
chief executive felt, not only in the case of the great fire, but in the meas-
ures taken to check the terrible disease from which, for want of suitable
sanitary precautions, many lives were sacrificed during the last months of
his administration. • While, therefore, his general policy in the management
of the city affairs was approved by all classes, the lack of energy shown in
these two instances raised a strong opposition to his retention in office ; and
at the election on Dec. 10, 1872, Henry Lillie Pierce,1 who was nominated
1 Mr. Pierce, the descendant of an English his native town and in the academy at Milton,
family that settled in Watertown in 1638, was and the academy and normal school at Bridge-
born in Stoughton, Mass., Aug. 23, 1825. He water. Although actively engaged in business
received his education in the public schools of since the twenty-fifth year of his age, he has
VOL. III.-^-36.
282 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
by the Republicans on a non-partisan platform, received a plurality of
seventy-nine votes.
Mr. Pierce brought to the mayor's office not only good business principles
and an intimate knowledge of municipal affairs, but an ability for dealing
with public questions very rare among men not specially trained for office.
In his inaugural address he recommended the reorganization of the fire and
health departments, and the revision of the city charter. He did not con-
tent himself merely with recommending these measures which he thought
essential to the good government of the city ; he had that sense of respon-
sibility in seeing them carried out which is the chief requisite of a good
executive. Within ten days after taking office he organized a new board of
health, and took effective measures to check the loathsome disease from
which the people were dying at the rate of about fifty a week. The re-
organization of the fire department met with strong opposition. The move-
ment was made to appear as a sort of reflection on the conduct of the
members during the great fire. Now the firemen had behaved on that
occasion with characteristic spirit and bravery, but for want of an intelli-
gent head their efforts were badly directed. Many of them, however, did
not appreciate this, and they made the cause of their chief their own. Had
it not been for another serious fire on May 30, 1873, which went far to de-
stroy the public confidence in the management of the department, it is
hardly probable that the Mayor's recommendation could have been carried
out. It required no additional legislation on the part of the State to enable
the city council to place the department under a paid commission, and
on October 24 an ordinance was passed giving the mayor authority to ap-
point, with the approval of the city council, three fire commissioners, to
hold office for three years each. The duty of extinguishing fires and pro-
tecting life and property in case of fire, was intrusted to these commission-
ers ; and to enable them to perform their duty in the most efficient manner,
they were authorized to appoint all other officers and members of the
department and fix their compensation. The Mayor lost no time in carry-
ing the ordinance into effect, and a considerable reduction in the rates of
insurance soon testified to the efficiency of the new organization.
The recommendation for a revision of the city charter was also strongly
opposed, on the ground that it looked to a centralization of power; but the
mayor was finally authorized to appoint a commission. to consider the sub-
ject. Benjamin R. Curtis, the eminent jurist, accepted the position of chair-
man, but he died before the work was entirely completed ; and his place
was filled by George Tyler Bigelow, formerly Chief-Justice of the Supreme
always taken a deep interest in public affairs. Legislature for four years (1860-62, 1866); and
The pro-slavery course of the Democratic party, on the annexation of Dorchester to Boston he
to which he originally belonged, led him in 1848 was chosen to represent that part of the city
to join in the organization of the Free Soil party, (where he had long been a resident) in the board
and afterward to become an active member of of aldermen during the two years ending 1870-
the Republican party. He was a member of the 71.
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS. 283
Court. In their report, submitted at the beginning of the year 1875, the
commissioners said : —
" The lapse of half a century since the adoption of the first charter has wrought
great changes in the city and in its municipal affairs. Its population in 1822 was only
a little more than forty thousand. It now contains upward of three hundred and
forty thousand. Its territory at that time embraced an area of about two thousand
acres ; now it includes more than twenty-one thousand five hundred acres. Its valu-
ation in 1822 amounted only to about forty-two million; in 1874 it rose to upward of
eight hundred million. The change has not been merely in the extent of its territory,
the number of its inhabitants, and the amount of its taxable property. The character
of its population has greatly changed. Instead of a small, compact community, the
leading citizens of which were well known to each other, it has become a large me-
tropolis, with a population spread over a large extent of territory, divided into numer-
ous villages, widely separated, having but few interests in common, and the inhabitants
of which are but little known to each other. With these changes have come their
natural consequences. Many institutions, public works, and organizations have grown
up or been established, such as the public exigencies require, and which have added
largely to the duties of the public officers of the city, essentially changed their char-
acter, and rendered their administration more difficult and complicated. ... It would
seem to be clear that duties so numerous and important cannot be properly superin-
tended and managed by persons who render gratuitous services only, or who are
chosen to office not for their experience in the duties which they may be called to
perform, or their peculiar fitness and skill in the work of the different departments
which they may have hi charge."
The draft of a new charter, which the commissioners submitted with their
report, provided that the mayor and the members of the city council should
hold office for three years ; that the city council should have entire control
over all appropriations of the public money and the purposes for which it is
expended ; that the heads of the several executive departments should be
appointed by the mayor with the approval of the city council; and that the
school committee should be reduced to two members from each ward.
Some of the recommendations made by the commissioners have since been
carried out, but the report as a whole never received the approval of the
city council.
Among other important matters which engaged the attention of the city
government during the year 1873 were the street improvements within the
district covered by the great fire of the previous year. The cost of these
improvements amounted to over five million dollars. The old streets were
so narrow and crooked that it was at first proposed to lay out the territory
on an entirely new plan ; but it was found on examination that the city
could not give a good title to the land included in the old streets, and the
improvement was, therefore, restricted to the widening and straightening of
the old ways.
The city council of this year also passed an order requesting the trustees
of the Public Library to open the reading-room connected with that institu-
284 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
tion on certain hours every Sunday. Similar orders, passed in 1865 and
1872, had been vetoed by the mayors then in office, partly on the ground
that the law officer of the city was of the opinion that the opening would be
a violation of the statute relating to the observance of the Lord's Day, and
partly on the ground that it was contrary to public policy. Mr. Pierce was
heartily in favor of the measure ; and with his approval it was carried into
effect, and its wisdom has hardly been questioned since.
The boundaries of the city were considerably enlarged this year by the
annexation of Charlestown, West Roxbury, and Brighton.1 At the election
in November, 1873, Mr. Pierce was chosen a member, of the National
House of Representatives to fill a vacancy in the third Congressional district,
caused by the death of Mr. William Whiting. In order to take his seat in
the House on the first Monday in December, he resigned the office of
mayor; and in accordance with the provisions of the charter the duties
were performed for the remainder of the year by Leonard R. Cutter, chair-
man of the board of aldermen.
At the municipal election in December Samuel Crocker Cobb2 was
chosen mayor for the ensuing year by a nearly unanimous vote. For the
office of chief executive he was singularly well fitted, not only by experi-
ence in municipal affairs, but by a disposition in which great energy and
courage were joined to high-bred courtesy and genial frankness. Although
not specially identified with any political party, his sympathies, after the
dissolution of the Whig party to which he originally belonged, were gen-
erally with the Democratic party on national questions. He was a firm
believer, however, in a non-partisan administration of local affairs ; and so
well did he act up to his convictions in that matter, that the Citizens
elected him for three successive terms, — the last time against the united
opposition of the two leading political parties. During these three years
( 1 874-76) a great many important measures were acted upon by the city
government.
In his inaugural address the Mayor recommended the establishment of
several public parks in different sections of the city, easily accessible to
1 Charlestown at this time contained about century. The paternal ancestor, Henry Cobb,
30,000 inhabitants, and covered an area of 586 emigrated to the Plymouth Colony as early as
square acres. Brighton contained about 5,000 1629, and settled at Barnstable, where he died in
inhabitants, and covered an area of 2,277 square 1679, leaving seven sons. He was fitted for col-
acres. West Roxbury numbered about 9,000, lege at the Bristol Academy in Taunton, but came
and its territory embraced an area of 7,848 to Boston at the early age of sixteen, and engaged
square acres. By the census of 1870 the popu- in the foreign shipping business, which he was fol-
iation of Charlestown was 28,323 ; of Brighton, lowing at the time he entered the mayor's office.
4,967 ; of West Roxbury, 8,683. [See the chap- He served as a member of the Roxbury board of
ters on "Charlestown," " Roxbury," and " Brigh- aldermen in 1861-62 ; and after the annexation of
ton," in the present volume. — En.] that city in 1867 he was chosen as its first repre-
3 He was born in Taunton, Mass., on May sentative in the Boston board of aldermen. He
22, 1826, and was the descendant of an English also served as a member of the board of direc-
family of good condition that settled in that tors for public institutions from 1869 to the close
town during the latter half of the seventeenth of the year 1873.
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS. 285
the people. The subject of enlarging the public grounds had already
received some attention. In 1869 the General Court passed an act pro-
viding for the appointment of a mixed commission, part by the State and
part by the city authorities, with power to take lands and " lay out one or
more public parks in or near the city of Boston." The act was not to take
effect unless accepted by two-thirds of the inhabitants of Boston, who might
exercise the right of voting on the question ; and failing to receive the re-
quisite number of affirmative votes, it became void. In accordance with the
Mayor's recommendation a new application was made to the Legislature ;
and in 1875 an act was passed authorizing the mayor, with the approval of
the city council, to appoint three park commissioners, with power to take
lands, lay out public parks, and make rules for their government. The
operations of the commissioners were restricted, however, by a provision in
the act that no expenditures could be made by them, and no obligations
entered into beyond the appropriations of money made from time to time
by the city council. This act was duly accepted by the citizens on June 9,
1875, and the commissioners were appointed in the following month. Be-
yond preparing plans and estimates no action was taken by the commission-
ers until 18771 when, with the approval of the city council, they purchased
one hundred and six acres of flats on the westerly side of the Back Bay, at
the average price of ten cents per square foot. The assessments which
they were authorized to levy on the adjoining lands, on account of their in-
creased value from the establiehment of the park, have made the net cost of
the property to the city only about thirty thousand dollars. The commis-
sioners have since recommended, and the city council has now under con-
sideration, the purchase of a large tract of land in West Roxbury, the
purchase of certain lands and flats at City Point, in South Boston, and the
acquisition from the State of a strip of flats on Charles River, in the rear of
Beacon Street and Charles Street, for an ornamental embankment and
driveway. Connected to some extent with the park improvement, as a
sanitary measure, was the plan for an intercepting sewerage system prepared
by an able commission appointed by the Mayor in 1875. The plan was
adopted in 1877, and an appropriation of $3,713,000 was made to carry it
out. It involved the construction of about thirteen miles of intercepting
sewers, the establishment of pumping works at Old Harbor Point, and a
tunnel, under Dorchester Bay, to the outlet in deep water beyond Moon
Island. The work has not yet (1880) been completed.
To carry on the important work of procuring an additional supply of
water from Sudbury River, to which reference has already been made, the
Mayor urged the appointment of a paid commission, organized on the same
basis as the health and fire boards ; and on the petition of the city coun-
cil the Legislature of 1875 passed an act authorizing the appointment of
such a commission, to be known as the Boston Water Board. The board
was organized in the following year, and all the powers conferred by the
statutes of the Commonwealth, in relation to supplying the city with water,
286 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON:
were delegated to it ; but in the exercise of its powers the board is subject
to the supervision of the city council.
In his first address the Mayor referred to the inability both of the State
and the city police to execute the law prohibiting the sale of intoxicating
liquors, and stated that he would " use all legal means to carry into effect
a law which should have for its object the regulation and restraint of the
liquor traffic." In the following year the Legislature passed a license law,
and its execution in the city of Boston was given to a board of three li-
cense commissioners, appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the city
council.
By an act of the Legislature passed in 1874 the mayor was authorized to
appoint, subject to the approval of the board of aldermen, three persons
to constitute a board of registrars of voters. Previous to that time the
preparation of the voting lists had devolved upon the city clerk. There
was much dissatisfaction with the manner in which the ward officers per-
formed their duties of receiving, counting, and returning votes. The city
charter provided for the annual election of a warden, clerk, and six inspec-
tors, by the qualified voters in each ward. These offices were filled in many
instances by persons who were barely able to read and write, and who were
utterly incapable of properly performing the duties. The aldermen con-
stituted the returning board for the city ; and being called upon after every
election to recount more or less of the votes, the grossest errors were often
discovered in the ward returns. In 1876 the mayor was authorized, with
the approval of the aldermen, to appoint three of the six inspectors of elec-
tions in each ward. By putting the responsibility for the selection upon
the mayor, and increasing the term of office to three years, it was expected
that an honest and intelligent discharge of the duties would be secured ;
but the reform did not go far enough ; interested parties still controlled a
majority of the ward officers. In 1878, therefore, on the petition of the city
council, the Legislature passed an act authorizing the board of assessors
of taxes to divide each ward of the city into voting precincts, containing
as nearly as practicable five hundred registered voters ; and, in addition to
a warden and clerk elected by the inhabitants of the precinct, the mayor,
with the approval of the aldermen, was authorized to appoint two inspec-
tors, representing different political parties. Under this system it is com-
paratively easy to detect errors or frauds either in the registration of voters
or in the returns of elections.
In 1875 the Legislature passed an important act to regulate and limit
municipal indebtedness. It provided that cities and towns in this Common-
wealth should not become indebted to an amount, exclusive of loans for
water supply, exceeding in the aggregate three per centum on the valuation
of their taxable property ; but in any city or town where the indebtedness
amounted, at the time the act was passed, to two per centum on its valua-
tion, permission was given to increase the debt to the extent of an additional
one per centum. At the time the act took effect this city was indebted
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS. 287
more than two per centum on its valuation (about two and three fifths), and
was therefore authorized to increase the debt one per centum on its valua-
tion of May i, 1875, namely, $793,961,895. Any debts contracted for other
purposes than constructing general sewers and supplying the inhabitants
with pure water are made payable within a period not exceeding ten years,
and the city is required to raise annually by taxation an amount sufficient
to pay the interest as it accrues, and eight per centum of the principal until
the sum raised is sufficient to extinguish the debt at maturity. Debts in-
curred in constructing sewers may be made payable at a period not exceed-
ing twenty yeans ; and for supplying water, at a period not exceeding thirty
years. The Mayor seized the opportunity afforded by the passage of this
act to urge upon the city council the policy of raising by taxation, annu-
ally, a sufficient amount of money to pay for all expenses incurred by the
city, except for the enlargement of the water works. He was able to show
that, if the government abstained from contracting new loans, the sinking
funds already established would free the city from all except the water debt
in eight years; but while the government was ready then, and indeed has
at all times been ready, to applaud any general proposition looking to the
reduction or extinction of the debt, its virtuous resolutions have seldom
stood in the way of any scheme which seemed to meet the popular favor ;
and it may fairly be presumed that the indebtedness of the city will be kept
very' near the limit authorized by law.
Perhaps the most notable event of Mr. Cobb's administration, certainly
the one. which possesses the greatest historical interest, was the celebration
of the one hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill. On the even-
ing of June 1 6, 1875, there was a very remarkable meeting in Music Hall.
Many of the men who had taken a leading part in the war of the Rebellion
— rebel and patriot ; the soldier of the Union and the soldier of the Con-
federacy— met for the first time in peace and with a common object, — the
commemoration of the most important of the series of events which re-
sulted in the creation of an independent nation. The Mayor's address of
welcome was admirably adapted to the spirit of the meeting, and met with
a very cordial response from the city's guests. On the following day there
was a great procession, composed of various military and civic bodies, and
an oration on the site of the historic battleground by Charles Devens, Jr.,
at that time a justice of the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth.
Mr. Cobb was succeeded in the mayor's office by Frederick Octavius
Prince,1 who was elected in December, 1876. He was the candidate of the
Democratic party ; and partly through the influence of the national elec-
tion held the month previous, and partly through his own personal popu-
larity, he received about five thousand more votes than his opponent,
1 Mr. Prince came of a good family, long in his native city and at Harvard College, and
resident in Boston, where he was born Jan. 18, subsequently became a member of the Suffolk
1818. He was graduated at the Latin School Bar.
288 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Nathaniel J. Bradlee, who was not only the candidate of the Republican
party but of the Citizens' organization. Mr. Prince had held no office in
the city government previous to his election as mayor, and his knowledge
of municipal affairs was somewhat limited ; but his readiness and ability as
a public speaker, and his tact and courtesy as the representative of the city,
especially on festive occasions, have been accepted as an offset, to some
extent, for any shortcomings in the business administration of the office.
Having been elected as the special representative of a party, he found
some difficulty in making the demands of his supporters agree with the
best interests of the city; and he did not always succeed in doing so. It
may be said, however, that he endeavored to carry out the policy of re-
trenchment inaugurated by his predecessor, and that during the first part of
his administration his efforts in that direction were measurably successful.
In 1874 the tax levy had reached the enormous sum of $12,000,000. The
panic of 1873 had proved most disastrous to the owners of real estate,
especially to a large class of speculators in the lands recently annexed to
the city. The policy pursued by the local assessors of maintaining a high
valuation of real property created much dissatisfaction, and there was a
general demand not only for a reduction of valuations, but for a reduction of
expenses. In response to this demand the city's expenses were reduced in
1875 and 1876 to the extent of $2,775,098; and the valuation of real estate
was reduced in 1876 from $558,000,000 to $526,000,000. In 1877 a further
reduction of over half a million dollars was made in the tax levy, without
detriment to the public service, and the real estate valuation was reduced
to $481,000,000; but the spirit of economy which prevailed at the begin-
ning of this year did not continue to the end. An order was passed by
the city council to run the East Boston ferries at the city's expense ; and
although the Mayor was informed by the city solicitor that the order was
illegal, he gave it his approval. The opponents of the measure went to the
supreme court, and obtained a writ of mandamus directing the city to con-
tinue to collect the tolls established by the board of aldermen. The ap-
propriations for carrying out the plan for improved sewerage ($3,713,000),
for erecting a new building for the English High and Latin schools ($35<V
ooo), and for a Back Bay park ($450,000), — measures initiated by previous
city governments, — met with general approval.
When the time came for selecting candidates for the next city govern-
ment, the dissatisfaction with Mr. Prince's administration found expression
in a petition, signed by some twenty-five hundred tax-paying citizens
" representing all parties and all classes," asking Mr. Henry L. Pierce,
who had retired from Congress at the end of four years' service, to allow
his name to be used as the Citizens' candidate for mayor. The call was
too imperative to be disregarded ; and Mr. Pierce stood as the candidate of
the Citizens and also of the Republicans. Mr. Prince was renominated by
the Democrats. There was a very bitter contest, which resulted in the
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS. 289
election of Mr. Pierce by a majority of about two thousand three hundred
votes.
On taking office Mr. Pierce made an address to the city government,
which was highly commended by the representatives of all parties. Refer-
ring to some of the schemes which had been devised for improving our
local government by a limitation of the suffrage, or by transferring the
more important duties to commissions appointed by the State authori-
ties, he said : -
"While I am fully sensible of the defects in our present system of municipal
administration, I cannot help regarding with distrust any scheme for curing them by
a radical change of the New England system under which we have grown up, and
which, notwithstanding its defects, has thus far produced better results than any other
system that has been tried in this country. ... It is hardly probable that a con-
dition of things can arise in any city in New England where those who have an in-
terest in maintaining order will be outnumbered by those who hope for some personal
benefit by creating disorder ; therefore, if those who have interests at stake will bestir
themselves to protect their interests, — and there is no safety in any scheme which can
be devised unless they do so, — they can better accomplish their purpose by outvoting
their opponents than by undertaking to deprive them of privileges they now possess.
In a recent argument in favor of extending household suffrage to the counties in Eng-
land, Mr. Gladstone says the franchise is an educational power. The possession of it
quickens the intelligence, and tends to bind the nation together. It is more impor-
tant to have an alert, well-taught, and satisfied people than a theoretically good legis-
lative machine."
The most important act of Mr. Pierce's second administration was the
reorganization of the police department. The regular police force at this
time consisted of seven hundred and fifteen men. They were appointed by
the mayor with the approval of the aldermen, and held office during good
behavior. The powers of the mayor, the aldermen, and the chief of police
were not clearly defined, and in consequence the discipline of the depart-
ment was very lax. Mayor Cobb, in his address to the city council of 1876,
had strongly urged the appointment of a commission to administer the
department ; but the Democrats were at that time united in their opposi-
tion to the creation of any more " three-headed commissions," and there
were some prominent Republicans who doubted the expediency of giving
any more power to the mayor. While the feeling against commissions in
general was not much changed during the two following years, the growing
inefficiency of the police department was so clearly seen that when Mayor
Pierce pointed out the improvements which had been made in the fire and
health departments by putting them under commissions, and declared his
belief that a like improvement would follow the appointment of a commis-
sion to have charge of the police department and the execution of the laws
in relation to the sale of intoxicating liquors, public opinion forced the city
council to give its sanction to the measure. An act was obtained from the
Legislature authorizing the mayor, with the approval of the city council, to
VOL. in. — 37.
290
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
appoint three commissioners to serve for a term of three years each. The
appointments of the mayor were readily confirmed, and the commissioners
organized on July 8, 1878.
A further reduction of nearly $900,000 was made in the tax levy of this
year; so that, although the assessors made a reduction of seventeen million
dollars in the valuation of property, the rate of taxation was reduced from
$13.10 to $12.80 on a thousand.
At the end of the year Mr. Pierce declined a re-election ; and Mr. Fred-
erick O. Prince was again brought forward as the candidate of the Demo-
crats. His opponent was Colonel Charles R. Codman, who was the nominee
of the Citizens and Republicans. The feeling that Mr. Prince had been
rather hardly pressed in the preceding election led to a sort of reaction in
his favor, which returned him to office with a plurality of about seven hun-
dred votes. There was a marked improvement in his administration during
his second term, so that he had the partial endorsement of a Citizens' nomi-
nation for a third term, and was elected by a majority of about two thousand
six hundred votes over Mr. Solomon B. Stebbins, the Republican candidate.
During these last two years (1879-80), the time of the government has
been occupied mainly in carrying out the important measures previously
AUTOGRAPHS OF THE MAYORS.
BOSTON UNDER THE MAYORS.
291
AUTOGRAPHS OF THE MAYORS.
adopted, — the improvement of the sewerage system, the construction of a
park on the Back Bay, the enlargement of the water works, the construction
of sewers in the Mystic valley to preserve the purity of the water supplied
from that source, and the erection of a costly building for the English High
and Latin schools. The most important among the new projects now (1880)
under consideration are the establishment of public parks in West Roxbury,
at South Boston Point, and on the banks of Charles River ; and the erection
of a new county court house, and public library building.1 On Sept. 17,
1880, the city government celebrated the two hundred and fiftieth anniver-
sary of the settlement of Boston. A bronze statue of John Winthrop,2 which
1 For the last named purpose the General
Court of 1880 granted to the city, free of rent, a
parcel of land containing about thirty-three thou-
sand square feet, situated on the southerly cor-
ner of Dartmouth and Boylston streets ; the only
conditions being that the erection thereon of a
library building should be begun within three
years, and that the library should be open, under
reasonable regulations, to all the citizens of the
Commonwealth. [See the chapter on " Libraries "
in Vol. IV. — ED.]
2 A heliotype of this statue is given in Vol. I.
Jonathan Phillips, who died in July, 1860, be-
queathed to the city of Boston $20,000 " as a trust
fund, the income of which shall be annually ex-
pended to adorn and embellish the streets and
public places of the city." On the recommenda-
tion of Mayor Cobb in 1875, the aldermen voted
to use a portion of the income from the fund to
erect a statue of Josiah Quincy. The order was
given to Mr. Thomas Ball, and the statue was
placed in front of the city hall, as a companion
292 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
had been erected in Scollay Square, was unveiled in the morning. Then
followed commemorative services in the Old South Church, where the Mayor
delivered an address of some length on the character and services of Win-
throp ; 1 and later in the day there was a great procession, the largest, it was
said, that ever walked the streets of Boston.
And here the sketch of Boston " under the mayors " comes to an end.
During the fifty-nine years that the city government has been established
the population of Boston has increased from about 45,000 to 362,535;
more than eight fold. About 215,000 persons live within the area covered
by the first city charter; and 147,500 persons live on the territory which
has been annexed since 1867. The current expenses of the city in 1822
amounted to $249,000; in 1880 the appropriations for current expenses, in-
cluding interest on the city debt, amounted to $10,190,387, — a forty-fold
increase. The valuation of property for purposes of taxation amounted in
1823 to $44,896,800; in 1880, to $639,462,495, — an increase of about four-
teen-fold. The highest valuation of taxable property, $798,755,050, and the
largest tax levy, $12,045,902, were in 1874, the second year after the great
fire, which destroyed about seventy-five million dollars worth of property.
Of the twenty-three persons who have held the office of mayor of Boston,
thirteen were born in the city ; all of them were born in New England ;
eleven were graduates of Harvard College, and three were graduates of
other colleges. Some of them have been men of distinction ; most of them
have been men of ability ; no one of them has retired from office with any
stain resting upon his character. The city has been fortunate in the charac-
ter of the men who have served her, both in the legislative and executive
departments of the government. The high standard of official integrity
which has been maintained is largely due to the efforts of those citizens who
have associated from time to time to resist the introduction of national party
politics into the management of the city business. They have for many
years held the balance of power between the two great political parties, and
they have kept the leaders of both in wholesome fear of the consequences
of making appointments to office for party purposes, or of using the city's
money to promote party interests.
piece to the Franklin statue, and unveiled Oct. Robert D. Smith, Esq., City Document, 103, 1880.
n, 1879. See Mayor Prince's address, City Docu- A portion of the income from this fund was also
ment, 1 1 5, 1879. In '879 the aldermen contracted used to beautify the lot of land at the junction of
for copies in bronze of the two representative Columbus Avenue and Pleasant Street, on which
statues of Massachusetts in the capitol at Wash- there is the group emblematical of Emancipa-
ington,— Samuel Adams, by Miss Anne Whitney, tion, presented to the city in 1879, by Mr. Moses
and John Winthrop, by Richard S. Greenough, — Kimball. See City Document 126, 1879.
the expense of making them to be charged to the l See City Document, 1880, containing a full
income from the Phillips Fund. The statue of account of the celebration, prepared by Mr.
Adams was unveiled July 4, 1880. See oration by William H. Lee.
CHAPTER III.
BOSTON AND THE COMMONWEALTH UNDER THE CITY
CHARTER.
BY HIS EXCELLENCY JOHN D. LONG, LL.D.,
Governor of Massachusetts.
T
HE subject of this chapter has its beginning in the presentation to the
General Court of the following petition: 1 —
"The undersigned, being a Committee authorized and instructed by the Town of
Boston, most respectfully represent —
" That the present size of the Town renders it impossible any longer to carry into
effect the principles on which its present government is founded, as this is presumed
to be exercised by the inhabitants at large, assembled in Town-meeting. There is no
Hall in the Town capable of containing all the legal voters ; and if such a room ex-
isted its dimensions would be too extensive to admit of wise conceit or true delibera-
tion by the citizens. The duty of attending Town -meetings is therefore becoming
more and more neglected ; and a very small minority of persons now decide upon the
public concerns of the whole community. The consequences are a want of unity,
regularity, and responsibility in the management of the prudential affairs of the Town.
The evils of such a state of things have been hitherto diminished by the intelligence,
prudence, and integrity of the different Boards that have been separately entrusted
with the management of various branches of Town affairs, yet no skill nor integrity
can supply the deficiencies of the present system, which oblige the Town so frequently
to trouble the Legislature with applications for minute local regulation. Trusting that
the Town may continue to partake in the growing prosperity of the Commonwealth
with which its own is so inseparably and entirely blended, the time must soon arrive
when the inconveniences and losses incident to an impracticable form of government
will be greatly and oppressively increased. The experience of actual disadvantages,
together with a principle of foresight, have convinced a majority of the citizens that
the present moment of calm in the public mind is a suitable one to adopt an altera-
tion which will be not only a present relief, but a preventive remedy for dangerous
tendencies. As the citizens of this State, with a view to this case, have recently made
an amendment to the Constitution authorizing the erection of city governments, the
1 [For the proceedings of the town leading to this petition, see Mr. Bugbee's chapter next pre-
ceding. — En.]
294 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
necessity of some change, it would appear, has become obvious not only to the inhab-
itants of this Town, but to the majority of the Commonwealth.
" For the reasons thus briefly stated, we pray your honorable Body to establish a
City Government for the Town of Boston.
" BOSTON, January 14, 1822.
DANIEL MESSINGER. WILLIAM SULLIVAN.
CHARLES JACKSON. GEORGE DARRICOTT.
MICHAEL ROULSTON. GERRY FAIRBANKS.
ISAAC WINSLOW. THOMAS BADGER.
GEORGE BLAKE. JAMES DALEY.
LEMUEL SHAW. HENRY FARNAM.
W. TUDOR. WILLIAM STURGIS.
LEWIS G. PRAY.
This paper is endorsed as follows : —
"In House of Representatives, Jan. 15, 1822. Read and Com'd to the Com-
mittee on Incoqjoration of Towns, etc.
" Sent up for concurrence. JOSIAH QUINCY, Spkr.
" In Senate, January 15, 1822. Read and concurred. JOHN PHILLIPS, Presitft"
It is a notable fact that President Phillips became the first, and Speaker
Quincy the second, mayor of the new city, — the former filling the office
one year, and Mr. Quincy five years. Two other presidents of the Senate
have also been mayors of Boston, — one of them, Harrison Gray Otis, pres-
ident in 1808-10, and mayor in 1829-31;. and the other, Josiah Quincy,
Jr., president in 1842 and 1844, and mayor in 1846-48. Since then, two
mayors of Boston have become governors of the Commonwealth, — Alex-
ander H. Rice, mayor in 1856-57, and governor in 1876-78; and William
Gaston, mayor in 1871-72, and governor in 1875. The roll of the Boston
Common Council of 1853 contains the names of two men who subsequently
rose to the chief magistracy of the State, — Henry J. Gardner and Alex-
ander H. Rice. Chief-Justice Bigelow was a member of the Common
Council from Ward Seven in 1843 ; and the Hon. Joseph A. Pond, president
of the Senate in 1866-67, and the Hon. Charles R. Train, late attorney-
general of the Commonwealth, saw service in the same body. Before he
became mayor, the Hon. Henry L. Pierce was a member of the popular
branch of the General Court; and the number of those is legion who have
held under both governments less distinguished but honorable offices.
The reciprocal relations of Boston and the Commonwealth under the
city charter, strictly interpreted, are purely official in their character, and
form a subject of but narrow scope, differing in no principle from those exist-
ing between the Commonwealth and her other municipalities. Seeking them
in the city charter itself, we find the inhabitants of Boston made a corporation
at their own request, and the administration of their fiscal and prudential
concerns vested in a mayor, a board of aldermen, and a common council.
All the powers formerly vested in the selectmen, either by statute or by the
usages, votes, or by-laws of the town, and also the powers of county com-
BOSTON AND THE COMMONWEALTH. 295
missioners, are given to the board of aldermen ; and the aldermen and
common council, acting concurrently as the city council, are endowed with
authority to provide for the assessment and collection of taxes for all pur-
poses for which towns may raise money, to appoint various executive offi-
cers, and even to make by-laws and ordinances, with fines for breach
thereof. But these powers were by no means plenary, and with the increas-
ingly rapid growth of the city came more and more frequent applications
for fresh grants. So numerous did these become, that in 1870 the city
council constituted a joint standing committee on legislative matters, whose
duty it is to advocate or oppose measures at the State House as the city's
interest demands. During the session of the General Court of 1879 some
thirty matters directly affecting the city of Boston were presented, — eight of
them petitions from the city government, — and the average each session for
the past ten years has been about twenty-five. The legislation respecting
Boston bridges will serve as an example of how much has been required.
The Boston South Bridge, now known as the Dover-Street Bridge, was sold
to the city by the original proprietors (among whom were William Tudor
and Harrison Gray Otis), under an act of the General Court of 1831 ; and
another act was passed in 1876, authorizing the widening of the bridge to
sixty feet. The Federal-Street Bridge was established by a corporation (the
Boston Free Bridge) created by an act of the General Court under which
the city purchased the property. The Mount Washington-Avenue Bridge
was acquired by the city under a similar act. The Broadway Bridge was
built by the city under chapter 188 of the acts of 1866; the Congress-Street
Bridge, under chapter 326 of acts of 1868, and nearly, if not quite, all the
smaller bridges were bought from private proprietors under special laws.
The Charles-River and Warren bridges were turned over to the cities of
Boston and Charlestown by chapter 322 of act of 1868 and acts amendatory
thereof. It was by commissioners appointed under chapter 302 of acts of
1870 that the expense of maintaining the West-Boston and Craigie's bridges
was apportioned between Boston and Cambridge ; and the legislature has
been called upon more than once to decide disputes between Boston and
Chelsea over the maintenance of the Chelsea bridge. In 1874 acts were
passed granting authority for the building of a bridge by Boston and Cam-
bridge, from a point on Beacon Street across the Charles River to Cam-
bridge, and also a bridge to form part of an avenue from Brattle Square,
Cambridge, to Market Street, Brighton ; but neither has been constructed.
The Cochituate water supply, the Boston registration and election laws, and
hundreds of matters, ranging in moment from the purity of the ballot-box
to the regulation of street-corner peanut-stands, have been subjects of leg-
islation, the briefest history of which is too voluminous to attempt within
these limits.
The great fire of Nov. 9 and 10, 1872, was the occasion of a special
session of the General Court, which convened November 19. His Ex-
cellency Governor Washburn, in his address to the Legislature, said : —
296 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
" The loss of Boston is the loss of the Commonwealth. Our ties are such that this
calamity affects even those of us who live in the remotest parts of the State. The
municipal government of the city and a large number of its most eminent business
men think that a few measures of immediate legislation are necessary. So far as I
am informed, or can learn, the universal sentiment of those who reside or do business
here is that they are abundantly able to meet the stress of the time from the resources
now at their command, if they can have the assent of the State to such steps as re-
quire its sanction. It is thought advisable that assurance of a loan for a term of years
at a moderate rate of interest should be given those who are unable to rebuild without
assistance. ... It is of the greatest importance that the waste places should be re-
covered as soon as possible with stores and warehouses of the most substantial kind,
fully adapted to the requirements of a large and widely extended trade. As a means
to this end the city will ask authority to issue its bonds, having not less than ten years
to run, and bearing a rate of interest not exceeding five per centum in gold, or six per
centum in currency."
The session lasted thirty days. A bill was passed authorizing the city to
issue bonds to the amount of $20,000,000, with interest at five per cent gold
and six per cent currency, to run fifteen years ; the proceeds to be loaned to
owners of sites of burned buildings. No bonds were issued, however, the act
being declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. A general law, au-
thorizing the formation of new insurance companies was enacted, with con-
siderable other legislation concerning insurance. The act for the regulation
and inspection of buildings in Boston was amended extensively, — thicker
walls, with brick, iron, or stone supports, being required, and the law being
made generally more stringent, and the penalties for its violation heavier.
Acts were also passed requiring the board of aldermen to establish a grade
of not less than twelve feet above mean low water, and prohibiting the con-
struction of any cellar below that grade, and the use of any such cellar except
for storage purposes under license from the board of aldermen ; authorizing
the city council to remove the Coliseum Building1 if not taken down within
a reasonable time ; incorporating the Merchant's Exchange ; to provide for
the appointment by the governor and council of a commission of three civil
engineers to investigate and report a plan for a thorough system of drainage
.for Boston and its vicinity within a radius of ten miles from the City Hall ; 2
to provide for the issue of bonds in lieu of lost or destroyed bonds of the
Commonwealth ; to authorize the Old South Church proprietors to lease
their meeting-house on Washington and Milk streets for use as a post-
office.
But while the city has been constantly requiring legislation, it has
sustained a very different relation to the Commonwealth in point of con-
tributions to the support of the State government. In 1822 Boston paid
$26,550.50 of the State tax of $75,000, or more than thirty-five per cent.
1 This was a wooden structure near the cross- 2 This act was conditional on the acceptance
ing of the Boston and Albany, and Boston and of the Boston City Council, and as no action
Providence Railroads, erected for the musical was taken thereon the commission was never
festival of 1872. appointed.
BOSTON AND THE COMMONWEALTH.
297
At a rough calculation, the population of the State at that time was 550,000,
and that of Boston about 50,000, or less than ten per cent of the whole.
The United States census of 1830 found 610,408 inhabitants in Massa-
chusetts, and 61,392 — a little more than ten per cent — in Boston, while
the city paid that year $24,874.50, or over thirty-three per cent of the State
tax of $75,000. Comparing the statistics on these points in later years, we
find that in 1860, with a population of 177,840 in the State total of 1,231,066,
— less than fifteen per cent, — the city paid $82,245 of the State tax of
$249,995, which is over thirty-three per cent. In 1870 the population of
the State was 1,457,351, and of the city 250,526, or seventeen percent,
while the city's share of the State tax was $933,775, or thirty-seven per cent
of the total of $2,500,000. The present year its portion of the State tax
was even larger, being $619,110 out of $1,500,000, or more than forty-one
per cent. The returns of the United States census for 1880 give the State
a population of 1,783,086, and the city 362,535, or a little less than twenty
and a half per cent of the whole.
The representation of Boston in the General Court has been substan-
tially, of course, in proportion to its population. The city's delegation in
1822 consisted of 6 senators in a Senate of 30, and 25 members in a House
of Representatives numbering 236. The senators were John Phillips, John
Willis, Jonathan Hunnewell, Warren Button, Lemuel Shaw, and Joseph
Tilden; and the representatives were Josiah Quincy, Benjamin Russell,
Thomas H. Perkins, William Prescott, William Tudor, Lynde Walter, James
Savage, Benjamin West, Nathan Appleton, John Cotton, Gedney King,
Enoch Silsby, Peter C. Brooks, Joseph Levering, George W.. Otis, Nathan
Hale, Jonathan Phillips, Heman Lincoln, Edward Winchester, Francis C.
Gray, Theodore Lyman, Jr., Henry Bass, Eliphalet Williams, William
Shimmin, and Francis J. Oliver.
We find in the lists of the successors of these gentlemen the names of
Samuel T. Armstrong, David Sears, Francis Jackson, David Henshaw,
David Lee Child, Caleb Loring, Horace Mann, Theophilus Parsons,
Robert C. Winthrop, George S. Hillard, Joseph T. Buckingham, George
T. Curtis, John P. Healy, Charles Francis Adams, George T. Bigelow,
John G. Palfrey, Samuel A. Eliot, Samuel G. Howe, and J. Lothrop
Motley; and among the delegates from the city to the Constitutional
Convention of 1853 were William Appleton, James M. Beebe, Sidney
Bartlett, Jacob Bigelow, George W. Blagden, Rufus Choate, Francis B.
Crowninshield, Samuel A. Eliot, Henry J. Gardner, Nathan Hale, George
S. Hillard, Frederick W. Lincoln, Jr., J. Thomas Stevenson, John S. Tyler,
and George B. Upton.
Between 1822 and 1857 Boston had 6 senators. The first apportionment
under Article XXI. and XXII. amendments to the Constitution reduced the
number to 5 ; but the second, in 1866, restored it to 6; and the third, in
1876, increased it to 8. One senator, however, has always been shared with
Chelsea, Revere (or North Chelsea), and Winthrop.
VOL. in. — 38.
298 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Down to 1857 the numerical strength of the House of Representatives
varied largely, and with it, though not in proportion, the delegation from
Boston. In 1823 and 1824 the city had 25 members, and in 1825 24 in a
House of 236; in 1826, 20 in 197; in 1827, 16 in 236; in 1828, 40 in 395;
in 1829, 55 in 539; in 1830, 59 in 493 ; in 1831,60 in 481; in 1832, 52 in
528; in 1833, 63 in 574; in 1834, 39 in 570; in 1835, 67 in 615 ; in 1836,
70 in 619; in 1837, 74 in 635; in 1838, 57 in 480; in 1839, 20 in 521 ; in
1840, 56 in 521; in 1841, 35 in 391. From 1842 to 1850, inclusive, the
Boston delegation numbered 35, but the number of the whole House varied
in these years as follows: 336, 352, 321, 271, 264, 255, 272, 263, 297. In
1851 and 1852 Boston had 44 representatives in Houses of 396 and 402
respectively; in 1853, 39 in 288; and from 1854 to 1857, inclusive, 44 in
310, 380, 329, and 327. Since then the House has consisted of 240 mem-
bers, of which, under the first apportionment, Boston had 26; under the
second, 33 ; and has under the third, and at present, 47.
The changes in the size of the House of Representatives between 1822
and 1857 were incident to the somewhat complicated system of apportion-
ment, and the several apparent discrepancies in the proportion of the
Boston delegation are but the natural results of the majority rule then in
use. For instance, in 1838 the Boston City Council voted in convention,
in accordance with the original charter, to fix the number of representatives
to be elected that fall at 56 ; but at the election on the second Monday in
November only 20 received a majority, and at the election to fill the 36
vacancies none at all, so that in 1839 the city was represented in the lower
branch of the General Court by only 20 men.
A number of notable benevolent and educational institutions located in
Boston, although not all exclusively of Boston, are beneficiaries of the Com-
monwealth. One is the Massachusetts General Hospital, which received
with its charter in 1811 a conditional grant of the Province House estate,
embracing a tract of land measuring 87 feet on Washington Street, and
extending back 267 feet to Province Street. This estate was leased by the
Hospital in 1817 for 99 years for what now seems the incredibly low rental
of $33,000 for the entire term. In consideration of its grant the State has
a representation of 4 members on the board of trustees. The Perkins
Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind receives a regular
annual grant of $30,000, and the School for Idiots and Feeble-Minded
Youth $17,500; for which, however, the State receives a partial return in
the education and care of some of its charges, and has also representatives
on the supervisory boards. Special grants are made from year to year to
other institutions, particularly the Massachusetts Charitable Eye and Ear
Infirmary, which received $9,000 at the hands of the last legislature. The
sites of the buildings of the Boston Society of Natural History and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology are the gift of the Commonwealth, so
that the bread which Boston cast upon the waters in giving the Common-
wealth the State-House site came back to it after many days ; and by a
BOSTON AND THE COMMONWEALTH. 299
resolve of the legislature of 1880 the city of Boston was granted " perpetual
right to hold, occupy, and control, free of rent or charge," a parcel of land
at the corner of Boylston and Dartmouth streets, containing some 33,000
feet, for the erection of a new public library building.
The improvement by the Commonwealth of its Back Bay lands and the
South Boston flats has of necessity required the co-operation of the city
government in the extension of streets and the building of bridges and
sewers. Under what is known as the tripartite agreement between the
Commonwealth, the city, and the Boston Water-Power Company, the Back
Bay territory was divided, some 108 acres going to the Commonwealth, and
an equal quantity to the Water-Power Company, — the city to receive a
small quantity of the land when filled, in satisfaction of certain claims.
The Commonwealth and the Water-Power Company filled their respective
portions to a certain grade, devoting a suitable proportion of the new land
to streets and passage-ways, in which they laid sewers and set edgestones,
while the city paved and maintains the streets and ways. The Common-
wealth completed its filling at a cost of something over $1,600,000, and has
disposed of all but about 3 acres. Nearly 145,000 feet were given for the
sites of the buildings of the Natural History Society and the Institute of
Technology, about 6,500 feet transferred to Trinity Church, 164,000 to the
city, and over 2,000,000 devoted to streets and passage-ways. The sale of
the remainder has netted the State, in round numbers, $3,000,000, furnish-
ing a notable exception to the ordinary results of State management of
business enterprises. In the improvement of the South Boston flats, yet
incomplete, special relations exist between the State and the city, under the
four-part agreement between the Commonwealth, the Boston and Albany
Railroad, the Boston Wharf Company, and the city of Boston, the other
parties doing certain filling, and the city agreeing to build two bridges
across Fort Point Channel to connect the new land with the old. One of
these, the Congress-Street bridge, is constructed, but the other awaits the
filling of the land to which it is to furnish access. The magnificent area
already here rescued from the ocean is guarded by a great sea-wall, girt with
railroad tracks, and improved by the warehouses, elevators, and coal-sheds
of the New York and New England Railroad. The process of filling is still
going on, and will only stop when Castle Island is reached. Lying at deep
water, and in the very heart of the city, these improvements will make a
port for Massachusetts of unrivalled capacity and promise for the future.
There are judicial decisions touching the relations between the Common-
wealth and cities which, though not particularly affecting Boston, are of
sufficient general interest to deserve mention. One, in the case of Buttrick
v. Lowell (i Allen, 172), concerns the liability of a city for injurious acts
of its police officers. Says the court: —
" Police officers can in no sense be regarded as agents or servants of the city.
Their duties are of a public nature. Their appointment is devolved on cities and towns
300 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
by the legislature as a convenient mode of exercising a function of government ; but
this does not render them liable for their unlawful or negligent acts. The . . . powers
and duties with which police officers and constables are entrusted are derived from the
law, and not from the city or town under which they hold their appointment. . . .
Nor does it make any difference that the acts complained of were done in an attempt
to enforce an ordinance or by-law of the city. The authority to enact by-laws is
delegated to the city by the sovereign power, and the exercise of the authority gives
to such enactments the same force and effect as if they had been passed directly by
the legislature. They are public laws of a local and limited operation, designed to
secure good order and to provide for the welfare and comfort of the inhabitants. In
their enforcement, therefore, police officers act in their public capacity, and not as the
agents or servants of the city."
Boston has several military organizations bearing peculiar relations to
the Commonwealth. First is the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Com-
pany, dating back two hundred and forty-three years, in whose ranks have
marched governors, judges of the supreme court, senators, and generals,
and whose officers are to this day invested with the badges of their authority
by the Governor in person. Next in order of seniority is the First Corps of
Cadets, the Governor's body-guard, whose first tour of duty was to escort
William Shirley, Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, on a visit
to the Colony of Rhode Island in 1741. It was at first known as the Inde-
pendent Company of Cadets, and as such was commanded by John Hancock
in 1774. Hancock was summarily dismissed from the command by Gover-
nor Gage in a letter (still preserved in the archives of the corps), on the
receipt of which the company promptly gave up the Governor's standard,
and informed him that the dismissal of their first officer was equivalent to
disbandment. The company thereupon disbanded, but did not become
extinct, reviving in 1776 under the name of the "Independent Company,"
and reorganized under its present charter in 1786.
Another of Boston's famous corps is the National Lancers, whose gay
uniforms and fluttering pennons have for so many years given a touch of
color and picturesqueness to the Governor's Commencement Day proces-
sion from Boston to Cambridge.
There are other Boston military companies having a long and honorable
record, — the "Tigers," the school of Boston soldiers since 1798, and the
" Fusiliers," who had the honor of being Governor Hancock's body-guard
on general election day in 1792 ; but the "Ancients," the " Cadets," and the
" Lancers " alone bear at present any exceptional relationship to the Com-
monwealth. Massachusetts will never forget, however, the days when every
Boston military organization represented her ; and there is hardly a field of
battle in the South whose story does not tell how gallantly they bore her
flag, and how proudly they sustained her martial fame.
It is significant that the Commonwealth has placed as her fittest repre-
sentatives in the national gallery at Washington the statues of two men of
Boston. As in the days of Winthrop and Sam Adams, so Boston stands
BOSTON AND THE COMMONWEALTH. 301
now, a representative of Massachusetts. It represents in its myriad manu-
factories, mills, and workshops, and in the well-tilled and fertile fields which
lie about it, the varied industries of the State. It represents in its marts,
in its busy stores and massive warehouses, the enterprise and solidity of
her trades. It represents in its fifty millions of bank capital, and in the
character of its financiers, her pecuniary wealth and stability. It represents
in its fifty millions of savings-bank deposits the thrift and economy of her
people. In its hospitals, asylums, and charitable institutions it represents
the benevolent and public spirit for which Massachusetts is pre-eminently
distinguished. It represents in its public schools the best results of that
system of popular education which is one of the Commonwealth's chief
glories, and in its higher institutions of learning her best scholarship and
broadest culture. In its pulpits it represents the devoutness and the zeal
of the olden time, with the toleration and liberality of the later. In what-
ever constitutes the prosperity of Massachusetts, Boston stands her worthy
representative ; and there is hardly a school-house or a fireside in the
Commonwealth that has not contributed to the population, the character,
the enterprise, and the good name of this its capital city.
[NOTE. — The Editor is indebted to Captain Clark, 1796; Maj. Thomas Clarke, 1653, 1665; Capt.
A. A. Folsom for a list of the commanders of the Thomas Clarke, Jr., 1673 ; Maj. Moses G. Cobb, 1855;
Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company ; and BriS-Gen. Robert Cowdin, 1863 ; Maj. Andrew Cunning-
t t\, i j i j ham, 1793 ; Maj. James Cunningham, 1768 ; Capt. Nathan-
of the one hundred and seventy-one commanders • , A „ • ~ ' .
iel Cunningham. 1731; Rng.-Gen. Amasa Davis, 1795;
from 1 638 to 1 880, forty-seven have been residents Brig.-Gen. Thomas Davis, 1835; Capt. William Davis,
of Boston and Suffolk County, as follows: — 1664, 1672; Col. Thomas Dawes. Jr., 1766, 1773; Brig-
Gen. H. A. S. Dearborn, 1816; Maj. Thomas Dean, 1819;
Capt William Alexander, 1806; Capt. Bozoun Allen, Maj. Louis Dennis, 1838: Col, William Downe, 1732,
1696; Maj.-Gen. Humphrey Atherton, 1650,1658; Lieut. 1744; Lieut.-Gov. William Dummer, 1719; Capt. Thomas
Edwin C. Bailey, 1862, 1871; Col. John Ballentine, 1703, Edwards, 1753; Col. Thomas Fitch, 1708, 1720, 1725;
1710: Capt. Samuel Barrett. 1771; Capt. Jonas S. Bass, Maj. Dexter H. Follett, 1874; Capt. Albert A. Folsom,
1800; Maj. William Bell, 1774, 1786; Col. George Tyler 1876; Capt. James A. Fox, 1864; Capt. Theophilus Frary,
Bigelow, 1846; Maj. George Blanchard, 1805; Capt. Ed- 1682; Lieut.-Co). Jonas H. French, 18^61 : Capt. Lemuel
mund Bowman, 1807: Maj. Martin Brimmer, 1826; Maj. Gardner, 1803; Col. Robert Gardner, 1799; Capt. Manin
Francis Brinley, 1848, 1852, 1858 ; Capt. John Carnes, 1649 ; Gay, 1772 ; Col. Daniel L. Gibbens. 1824 : Maj.-Gen. Ed-
Lieut.-Col. John Carnes, 1748 : Maj. George O. Carpenter, ward Gibbons, 1639, 1641, 1646, 1654 ; Maj Alex. Hamilton
1868; Col. Samuel Checkley, 1700 ; Capt. Joshua Cheever, Gibbs, 1823 ; Capt. John Greertpugh, 1726 ; Maj. Newman
1741; Col. Thomas E. Chickering, 1857; Capt. Thomas Greenough, 1758; Capt. Ralph Hart, 1754; Capt. Thomas
302
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Hawkins, 1644; Maj. -Gen. William Heath, 1770: Lieut.- 1727: Maj. Thomas Savage, 1651, 1659, 1668, 1675, 1680;
Col. Daniel Henchman, 1738,1746; Maj. Joseph L. Hen- Col. Thomas Savage, Jr., 1705; Capt. Thomas Savage.
shaw, 1865; Col. Sir Charles Hobby, 1702, 1713; Capt. 1757; Maj. -Gen. Robert Sedgwick, 1640, 1643, 1648 ; Maj.
Melzar Holmes, 1808; Capt. William Homes, 1764; Capt. Samuel Sewall, 1701 ; Maj. Samuel Sewall, 2cl, 1734; Col.
William Howe, 1814; Capt. William Hudson, 1661 ; Capt. Samuel Shrimpton, 1694; Col. Amasa G. Smith, 1837;
John Hull, 1671, 1678; Col. Thomas Hunting, 1827; Capt. Thomas Smith, 1722: Capt. John L. Stevenson,
Capt. Edward Hutchinson, 1657 ; Col. Edward Hutchin- 1877; Col. Ebenezer W. Stone, 1841; Capt. Ebenezer
son, 1717, 1724, 1730; Col. Elisha Hutchinson, 1676, 1684, Storer, 1749: Lieut.-Col. Israel Stoiighton, 1642; Brig.-
1690, 1697; Col. Thomas Hutchinson, 1704, 1718; Col. Gen. William H. Sumner, 1821 ; Lieut.-Col. John Symmes,
Joseph Jackson, 1752; Capt. Robert Jenkins, 3d, 1790; 1755, 1761 ; Maj. Charles W. Stevens, 1880; Col. William
Capt. Isaac Johnson, 1667; Capt. Robert Keayne, 1638, Tailor, 1712; Col. William Tailor, 1760; Lieut.-Col. New-
1647; Capt. Samuel Keeling, 1716 ; Capt. Thomas Lake, ell A. Thompson, 1843; Capt. Onesiphorus Tilestone,
1662,1674; Maj. -Gen. Sir John Leverett, 1652, 1663, 1670; 1762; Capt. Samuel Todd, 1797; Col. Penn Townsend,
Col. Benjamin Loring, 1818; Capt. Caleb Lyman, 1739; 1681, 1691, 1698, 1709, 1723; Brig.-Gen. John S. Tyler.
Brig.-Gen. Theodore Lyman, Jr., 1822; Col. Charles A. 1832, 1844, 1847, 1860; Lieut. -Gen. John Walley, 1679,
Macomber, 1839 : Col. Thomas Marshall, 1763, 1767 ; Gen. 1699, 1707; Capt. Josiah Waters, 1769 ; Col. Josiah Waters,
Aug. P. Martin, 1878; Capt. Edward Martyn, 1715; Capt. Jr., 1791 ; Capt. Samuel Watts, 1742; Capt John Welch,
Hugh McDaniel, 1750 ; Col. Daniel Messenger, 1804, 1810 ; 1756; Brig.-Gen. Arnold Welles, 1811 ; Capt. George Welles,
Capt. Francis Norton, 1655; Capt. James Oliver, 1656, 1820; Col. Jacob Wendell, 1735, '745 i Col. John Wen-
1666; Capt. Peter Oliver, 1669; Lieut.-Col. Peter Osgood, dell, 1740; Col. Jonathan Whitney, 1813: Col. Marshall
1809; Col. Nicholas Paige, 1695; Maj. John C. Park, P. Wilder, 1856; Capt. Jonathan William, Jr., 1751 ; Capt.
1853; Maj. James Phillips, 1802 ; Col. John Phillips, 1685 ; John Wing, 1693; Col. Edward Winslow, 1714, 1729;
Col. John Phillips, 1747, 1759; Capt. Parker H. Pierce, Brig.-Gen. John Winslow, 1792, 1798; Lieut -Col. Adam
1830; Col. Edward Gordon Prescott, 1833; Lieut.-Col. Winthrop, 1706 : Brig.-Gen. Grenville T. Winthrop, 1834 ;
Josiah Quincy, Jr., 1829 : Brig.-Gen. John H. Reed, 1866 ; Brig.-Gen. John T. Winthrop, 1825; Maj. -Gen. Wait
Capt. John Roulstone, 1815 ; Maj. Benjamin Russell, 1801, Winthrop, 1692 ; Capt. Richard Woodde, 1677 ; Col. Isaac
1812; Lieut.-Col. George P. Sanger, 1854 ; Capt. Ephraim Hull Wright, 1850; Col. Edward Wyman, 1872; Col.
Savage, 1683; Lieut.-Col. Habijah Savage, 1711, 1721, Charles W. Wilder, 1879. — ED.]
CHAPTER IV.
BOSTON SOLDIERY IN WAR AND PEACE.
BY GENERAL FRANCIS W. PALFREY.
TOURING the eighteenth century Boston could hardly be called a grow-
-*-^ ing town. There were fluctuations in the number of its people ; but
it is not far out of the way to set that number at twenty thousand as an
average from 1700 to iSoo.1 By the census of 1810 its population was
given as 33,250. As had been the case almost from the earliest days of the
settlement, so in the beginning of the nineteenth century, its citizens were
largely dependent upon commerce for their prosperity. The state of things
existing upon the continent of Europe was very prejudicial to that com-
merce. In common with the other residents of the seaboard, the citizens
of Boston complained especially of wrongs to commerce from the British
orders in council, and the retaliating French decrees. Great Britain refused
to admit that free ships made free goods, and that arms and military stores
alone were contraband of war, and that ship-timber and naval stores were
excluded from that description. The British practice of impressing our
seamen, and of capturing American vessels bound to or returning from
ports where her commerce was not favored, was also a standing grievance.
From such causes the state of feeling in Massachusetts at the beginning of
the year 1812 was far from placid. In a general way it may be said that the
Federalists were opposed to war; but though strong in New England they
were weak in Congress. They had, however, always favored a navy ; but
the other great political party, the Democrats or Republicans, opposed this,
till the naval victories of 1812 caused them to change their minds. It was
1 [There are a few notes in Whitman's An- mander ; the Massachusetts Fusileers, Captain
f if lit and Honorable Artillery Company, p. 324, on William Turner, — all began their history, not all
the general apathy in militia matters immediately to continue long. A cavalry company was raised,
following upon the peace, and on the impulse to with Rufus G. Amory as captain ; followed by the
militia organization which took place in Boston at Boston Dragoons, Captain Henry Purkitt, who
the time of the Shays Rebellion. As a result of had been of Pulaski's Cavalry Corps in the Rev-
this movement the Ancient and Honorable Artil- olution. Some years later (1803) when Governor
lery Company renewed their meetings, which had Strong brigaded the Suffolk Militia, prominent
been omitted since 1775; the Corps of Cadets was among them were the Washington Light Infan-
reorganized, with Samuel Bradford for comman- try, Captain Loring ; the Boston Light Infantry,
der ; the Republican Volunteers (infantry), and a Captain Henry Sargent ; and the Winslow Blues,
light infantry company, Harrison Gray Otis com- Captain Messenger. — ED.]
304 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
understood that the President of the United States, Mr. Madison, was
anxious to avoid war, but that he was also anxious to secure a renom-
ination ; and it was believed that he might think the support of the more
fiery spirits, like Clay and Calhoun, necessary for his ends, and that he might
determine to purchase their support by consenting to war. The war feeling
was naturally weak on our unprotected seaboard, and stronger in the interior.
Even in Massachusetts, however, public opinion was much divided. In
January, 1812, a motion was lost in our Senate by a single vote for a call on
the Government for information about impressment; about the employ-
ment of ministerial printers to aid in destroying our own, and in establishing
over us a British government ; about plots for incendiary fires, and threats
of assassination. In the same month, however, the Senate appears to have
concurred with the House in ordering that the Secretary of the. Common-
wealth should give any certificate which might be necessary to procure the
release of American seamen, free of any charge.
On Feb. 24, 1812, at a meeting of the selectmen of the town of Boston,
there was presented an application from a number of gentlemen styling
themselves a committee from the Republican Convention of the County of
Suffolk, requesting the use of Faneuil Hall on the first Thursday of March
following. Thereupon it was voted —
" That the selectmen are not acquainted with the existence of any such public body,
and as the hall was built and enlarged for the use of the town, they cannot consent that
it should be occupied for any purposes which in their opinion would not meet the
approbation of the town."
On the 4th of April, Congress passed an act laying an embargo for ninety
days from and after the passage of the act on all ships and vessels in the
ports and places within the limits or jurisdiction of the United States, cleared
or not cleared, bound to any foreign port or place ; with a proviso permitting
the departure of foreign vessels, either in ballast, or with the goods, etc., on
board the same, when notified of the act.
On the loth of the same month, Congress passed an act authorizing the
President of the United States to require of the executive of the several
States and Territories to take effectual measures to organize, arm, and equip
according to law, and hold in readiness to march at a moment's warning,
their respective proportions of one hundred thousand militia. Early in
June the Massachusetts House of Representatives, upon the motion of Mr.
Putnam, of Salem, —
" Resolved, as the opinion of this House, that an offensive war against Great Brit-
ain, under the present circumstances of this country, "would be in the highest degree
impolitic, unnecessary, and ominous ; and that the great body of the people of this
Commonwealth are decidedly opposed to this measure, which they do not believe to be
demanded by the honor or interest of the nation ; and that a committee be appointed
to prepare a respectful petition to Congress to be presented, praying them to avert a
calamity so greatly to be deprecated, and by the removal of commercial restrictions to
BOSTON SOLDIERY IN WAR AND PEACE. 305
restore so far as depends on them the benefits of trade and navigation, which are indis-
pensable to the prosperity and comfort of the people of this Commonwealth."
This resolution was passed by a vote of four hundred and two to two hun-
dred and seventy-eight, and the address reported in accordance therewith was
adopted by a vote of four hundred and six to two hundred and forty ; but a
protest, signed by one hundred and eighty-six members of the House, was
presented and placed on file. The Senate concurred, and thereupon the Leg-
islature of Massachusetts sent to Congress a memorial against the war.1 The
counsels of those who favored war prevailed, however, and on the i8th of
June the President of the United States signed the bill declaring war; and on
the 23d of the same month the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massa-
chusetts delivered to the Senate of that State a message from the Governor,
communicating a letter from the Honorable James Lloyd, a senator from
Massachusetts, covering a declaration of war against Great Britain. There-
upon the House appointed a committee to consider the question of passing
a resolve requesting the Governor to appoint a Fast " in consequence of the
great and distressing calamity of the late unexpected Declaration of War."
Two days after, the House, one hundred and forty-nine to three, ordered
accordingly, " On account of the great and distressing calamity which God
in his holy Providence has permitted to be brought on the people of these
United States."
Thus the United States of America were at war with Great Britain, and
Boston was one of the most important seaport towns of the United States.
Besides the forces of the General Government, Massachusetts had her own
militia to look to ; and, so far as names were concerned, this was an impor-
tant force. The whole male population, substantially, between the ages
of eighteen and forty, was enrolled in the militia. The militia was arranged
into seventeen divisions,2 and a major-general for each was chosen from time
to time by the Senate and House of Representatives, and publicly qualified
with much form. A brigade under the law of Congress was composed of
four regiments, each of two battalions of five companies, and each company
of sixty-four privates. The efficiency of much of this force was little more
than nominal. The defences of the harbor were then as follows: 3 —
On Castle Island stood Fort Independence, a name given, in place of the
earlier designation retained from the Provincial times, on the occasion of the
visit of President John Adams, in August, 1799. The first stone of the new
Fort Independence was laid May 7, 1801, and the whole superstructure was
raised from an original design. The work was a barbette fortification, and its
dimensions were not materially different from those of the present Fort In-
1 [See Mr. Lodge's chapter in this volume was taken in revoking the organization of all
for a statement of the feeling in Boston respect- divisions after the thirteenth, prior to Aug. 6,
ing the war. — ED.] 1812.^
2 Four of which were mostly in what is now 8 For much of my information upon this
the State of Maine. See the Report of the point I am indebted to the courtesy of General
Committee of the Council, upon which action H. G. Wright, Chief of Engineers, U. S. A.
VOL. III. — 39.
306 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
dependence. On June 23, 1802, the national colors were first displayed on
the new fort, and the workmen were dismissed in January, I8O3.1
On the summit of Governor's Island stood Fort Warren, an enclosed
star fort, built of stone, brick, and sod, with a brick barrack for seventy
men, and a cellar under it, 65 by 20, for provisions, etc. It had also a brick
officers' quarters, a brick magazine, and a brick guard-house.
On the south side of Governor's Island was Fort Warren Battery, built of
brick, stone, and sod, with a brick guard-house for fifteen men, and a brick
magazine. This battery was to mount fifteen cannon, and to have a block-
house in its rear.
On the point formed by the Charles and Mystic Rivers was Charlestown
Point Battery, built of sod, with a stone foundation. In it ten pieces of
heavy cannon might be mounted.2
In pursuance of the Act of Congress providing for calling out the militia, a
requisition was made upon the Governor of Massachusetts for the quota of
that State. Thereupon a Committee of the House of Representatives reported
an address which contained these words: ." If your sons must be torn from
you by conscriptions, consign them to the care of God ; but let there be no
volunteers except for defensive war." The address of the Senate to the
people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was a shade more national
in its tone. " Let our young men who compose the militia," it said, " be
ready to march at a moment's warning to any part of our shores in defence
of our coast."
The call for the militia led Governor Strong of Massachusetts to ask
the Justices of the Supreme Court for their opinion upon certain ques-
tions to which the call gave rise. His request was dated Aug. i, 1812,
and the judges thereupon gave their opinion that commanders-in-chief of
the militia of the several States had a right to determine whether any of the
exigencies contemplated by the Constitution of the United States existed,
so as to require them to place the militia or any part of it in the service of
the United States, at the request of the President, to be commanded by
him pursuant to acts of Congress. They also advised him that when any
such exigencies existed, authorizing the employment of the militia of the
United States, the militia thus employed could not lawfully be commanded
by any officers but those of the militia, except by the President of the
United States.3
1 The five bastions of the new work were works on Charlestown Point and Governor's
named Winthrop, Shirley, Hancock, Adams, and Island is taken from a report made in 1808, by
Dearborn. Under Governor Winthrop the first Major J. G. Swift, of the Engineers ; and it is
fort on the island had been built; Governor assumed that these works remained unchanged
Shirley had repaired and added to Castle Wil- in the war of 1812, or at least undiminished.
Ham, and made the post the strongest fort in [See also the report of Jonathan Williams and
British America ; under Governor Hancock Alexander Macomb, abstracted in Lossing's
new works were thrown up; President Adams Pictorial Fieldbook of the War of 1812, p. 235.
gave the name of Fort Independence to the fort, — ED.]
and under General Dearborn, Secretary of War, 8 As early as the 8th of July of this year, at a
the new Fort Independence was built. meeting of the selectmen of the town of Boston,
2 It should be stated that this account of the the chairman was desired to confer with General
BOSTON SOLDIERY IN WAR AND PEACE. 307
On the 3Oth of August in this year Hull arrived in Boston, and gladdened
the people by the news of the capture of the " Guerriere," and received
their welcome. On the i6th of September following, fifteen thousand car-
tridges were ordered by the selectmen, and on the 23d of October the Senate
passed a resolve for the purchase of gunpowder and other military stores,
and for building a suitable storehouse for the same.
On Jan. 20, 1813, on the application of the officers of a company called
the Rangers, newly raised in Boston, an armory was assigned for their use ;
but the record does not indicate that the company was raised for the reason
that the country was at war.1
In February following, the Senate and House concurred in resolves au-
thorizing the Governor to adopt defensive measures to protect the towns and
shores of the Commonwealth and the town and harbor of Boston ; but the
Senate at the same time refused to pass a resolve of the House calling on
towns to return the number of seamen impressed.
The General Court had appropriated $100,000 for the purpose of placing
the ports and harbors of this Commonwealth in a better state of security ;
but the House at this time pronounced the sum inadequate, asserted the
duty of the General Government in that regard, under Article IV. section 4
of the Constitution of the United States, declared that the General Govern-
ment had neglected that duty, and directed that representation thereof be
made to it, with a request for an appropriation and for garrisons.
In March of this year there were services at King's Chapel to commemo-
rate the victories of the Russians over Napoleon, who aimed, it was said, at
the empire of the world. It is to be remembered that the headquarters of
the " Peace Party " were at Boston. The spring elections in New England
showed decided gains for that party. The town of Boston or its selectmen
appear to have taken steps in April, 1813, on the application of General
Brooks, for a conference between the Governor and the selectmen with a
view to local defence ; but the record does not show that anything came of
it. On May 12 it was provided that the New-England Guards — a Boston
company — should have an armory.
At this time affairs in Boston were much depressed by reason of the exist-
ing state of war. At the close of May the " Shannon " and the " Tenedos "
were watching our harbor ; and on June i the " Shannon" captured the Amer-
ican ship " Chesapeake." 2 In these months of May and June there seems to
Welles, and to consult him upon the proper mea- for captain ; and later being formed into a squad-
sures to prevent the practice of drumming in the ron with the Dragoons, Quincy became their ma-
streets after sunset; and on the nth of August jor. (E. Quincy's Life of Josiah Quincy, p. 346.)
following, on the report of a committee appoint- Whitman records that during the war a company
ed at a town-meeting held shortly before in favor of riflemen was raised in the town, Samuel P. P.
of patrols, lights in windows, etc., the selectmen Fay commanding it, and that it was disbanded
voted accordingly ; and, three weeks after, they after the peace. There were three militia corn-
made somewhat elaborate provisions for a watch, panics in Charlestown, — the Charlestown Ar-
to be composed of a captain and one hundred tillery, the Warren Phalanx, and the Light
men, to be on duty till daylight. Infantry. — ED.J
1 [A year or two before, a company of Hussars 2 [See Admiral Treble's chapter, following
had been raised in Boston, with Josiah Quincy this. — ED.]
308 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
have been much alarm as well as depression in Boston and in Massachusetts.
The commissioners appointed by the Governor in the preceding month of
March to carry into effect the resolutions of the General Court for the protec-
tion of the town of Boston, its harbor and vicinity, and the towns and ports
of the Commonwealth, made their report. The House took action thereon,
and appointed a committee to consider means for the restoration of peace,
and of restoring the Commonwealth to the blessings of a free and unrestricted
commerce, now blighted by the " unhappy war," and adopted a remonstrance
to Congress ; while the Senate (June 3) used strong language about the Gen-
eral Government, and concurred with the House in appointing commissioners
in regard to the defenceless condition of the sea-coast, and for considering
what measures it is expedient for this Legislature to adopt in relation to " the
unhappy war in which we are engaged," speaking of it as " unjust, unnec-
essary, and iniquitous," and as "waged without justifiable cause, and prose-
cuted in a manner which indicates that conquest and ambition are its real
motives."
On March 30 in the following year (1814), and before election, the
Columbian Centinel published an address to the men of Massachusetts, which
said : " Your present old captain won't let a Press-gang drag a man of you
into Wilkinson's land service. If you want to list, and die of the camp-ail,
he won't hinder you, for he wants only true hearts of oak aboard (i.e.,
aboard the good STRONG ship ' Massachusetts '), that will defend the ship
till she conquers or goes down." x
On April 19, 1814, the town was alarmed by the report of a number of
ships of war off the coast ; and in consequence, and at the suggestion of the
field officers of the Boston militia, the selectmen met and addressed a letter
to the adjutant-general. Two months after, on June 18, the selectmen met
commissioners appointed by the Governor and Brigadier-General Welles.
The question of victualling and pay was raised. It was decided that the
selectmen must subsist the men employed, and that the question of pay
should be left to the next General Court. The selectmen promised Gen-
eral Welles that they would attend to any communication from him in
reference to provisions and camp equipage.
By June 27 a general sense of alarm prevailed. Commissioners were
appointed on the part of the town to confer with Commodore Bainbridge
about sinking hulks.2 They reported two days after that hulks were to be
1 It does not appear that life in Boston was them instruction even in the plain minuet. A
altogether anxious and dull in the spring of 1814, Mr. Atwood was already selling oysters in Water
for we read that Mr. and Miss Holman were Street; and shell commodes, lion-head ring corn-
then appearing at the theatre in a round of char- modes, fluted clock-balls, bed-caps, and other
acters, playing Cymbetine, Wives as they Were, desirable ware were to be had of W. H. Ander-
Alexis, The Provoked Husband, As You Like It, son. [Nor were the demands of war so importu-
Jane Shore, etc.; that the Edinburgh Encyclo- nate but that great schemes of tide-water mills
padia and the Bride of Abydos were for sale in could be projected, — as appears by Dearborn's
the book-stores, and that Mr. Turner, the dan- map, February, 1814, given in another chapter, —
cing-master, was inviting the masters and misses and even new methods of printing be devised, as
of the period to " trip it lightly while you may" that map shows. — ED.]
at his academy in Bumstead Place, and promising 2 [See Admiral Treble's chapter. — ED.]
BOSTON SOLDIERY IN WAR AND PEACE. 309
got ready, and that artillery, etc., were ready. It was arranged that ten
companies of artillery should come from the neighboring towns at first
alarm to co-operate with detachments now made from the Boston militia.
On July 6 Colonel Osgood, commanding detachment of militia on Bos-
ton Common, applied for kettles, pans, axes, spades, pint pots, straw, wood,
etc. Many of the militia on duty asked for additional compensation, but
the board of selectmen were of one mind that it was not expedient to call a
town-meeting to consider that question at that time.
On August 3 provision was made for a temporary gun-house on the
Common. On the 24th of the same month, on the petition of a number of
inhabitants of the town for a town-meeting for defence, the selectmen voted
that it was inexpedient ; that they had the fullest confidence in the Governor
and his commissioners, and that it was not well to excite alarm by calling a
meeting, or to seem to distrust the Governor. The petitioners persisted,
and thereupon the selectmen voted to print their reasons for declining. On
the 3Oth Boston was threatened ; and on September 3 there was a town-
meeting, called on the petition of Winslow Lewis and more than ten free-
holders, to provide " means of-defence in the present exposed and dangerous
situation of this town." The Hon. Thomas Dawes was chosen moderator.
The resolutions adopted rehearsed the manifestness of the fact that in the
progress of this unhappy war —
" The destruction of the public ships and naval arsenals in the various ports in the
United States is a principal object of the enemy ; and therefore this town, notwithstand-
ing its uniform disapprobation of the measures which led to this calamity, and its
endeavors to avert it, may be exposed to danger from an enterprise against the ships
of war which are now lying in our port, without any adequate means of protection and
defence furnished by the General Government."
And presently proceeded : —
" And whereas we believe that the brave and disciplined militia of this and the
neighboring counties, which are ready at the shortest notice to repair to any point of
attack, will present to an invading foe a superiority in number to any force which is
yet known to be upon our coast, — yet as in times of great and imminent danger, ex-
traordinary exertion and alacrity become the duty of the citizen, and it may be accept-
able to His Excellency the Governor to receive the assurance that the citizens of
Boston in the times which try men's souls are, as they have been, ready to aid by
their manual labor and pecuniary contributions, and by all the ways and means in
their power, in promoting and making effectual any measure of defence which may be
devised by the proper authority, ..."
then expressed confidence in the. Executive, deplored the evils and ca-
lamities of war in the production of which they were in no wise instru-
mental, declared that they — the citizens of Boston — were not dismayed,
promised cheerful and cordial co-operation, and that, when in the opinion
of the Governor the occasion might require, they would " make prompt
310 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
and effective arrangements for the employment of all classes of the citizens
in the construction of fortifications or other means of defence, and for ob-
taining from patriotic individuals voluntary loans and contributions of
money to be applied to these objects."
This meeting was followed by volunteer digging. Fort Strong1 was
built at East Boston, on the southerly end of Noddle's Island ; a battery
was placed on Dorchester Heig"hts, and other defences were prepared at
Roxbury and Cambridge.2
On September 16, at a meeting of the selectmen, a proposal was made
to cut the bridges connecting the peninsula on which the town stood with
the main land ; and two engine companies were assigned to each bridge, —
that is to say, to the Charles River Bridge, the Canal Bridge, West Boston
Bridge, and the South Bridge.
On the iQth an address was adopted, calling for patriotic donations;
it spoke of exertions " necessary to assist the Government of the State,
upon whose protecting arm, under Divine Providence, we wholly de-
pend." The total of the contributions thus obtained seems to have been
$11,149-
In a letter from H. H. Dearborn to Thomas H. Perkins, dated Fort In-
dependence, Sept. 25, 1814, the writer says: "On this and Governor's
Island there are a sufficient number of men for manning all the works which
are now erected or begun." He then speaks of his intention to begin
forthwith works planned for the protection of " the defenceless positions on
Governor's Island," and says that he will be very glad to receive assistance
from the citizens in labor, and recommends that each man should bring a
spade, shovel, pick-axe, or wheelbarrow, and that he would be glad to see
two or three hundred men on the following Tuesday. He then describes
certain works begun and nearly completed by him on both Castle Island
and Governor's Island, and says that he has received from the laboratory
at Albany fifteen hundred pikes, and sent them to the two garrisons, by
1 I am indebted to Mr. Isaac H. Gary, Jr., of paper was without doubt drawn up by Paul Re-
Brooklyn, New York, for the information that he vere, he being the first signer; opposite each
has in his possession a little blank-book, about name is a statement of the time for which each
the size of an ordinary bank-deposit book, which man agrees to serve. He says that these men
was found among the papers of the late Isaac were sent by Governor Strong to work on the
Harris, who died at the " North End " of Bos- fortifications on Noddle's Island ; and that his
ton, aged over ninety years, in the year 1868; father, now eighty years old, and a nephew of
and he has kindly furnished me with a copy of Isaac Harris, remembers going there to see his
it, which leads as follows: "Boston, Sept. 8, father, who was there at work. Mr. Gary also
1814. The subscribers, Mechanics of the Town informs me that the boys from the public and
of Boston, to evince our readiness to co-operate private schools who were able to assist were
by manual labor in measures for the Defence of allowed to be absent from school during school
the Town and Naval Arsenal, do hereby tender hours. [See also Mr. Lodge's chapter in this
our services to His Excellency the Commander- volume. — ED.]
in-Chief, to be directed in such manner as he 2 It may be remarked that at this time
shall consider at this eventful crisis most con- smuggling seems to have been prevalent at
ducive to the Public Good." Then follow the Boston. At about this time the selectmen voted,
signatures of about one hundred and fifty names " during the present state of alarm, to attend
of North-End mechanics. Mr. Gary thinks the daily."
BOSTON SOLDIERY IN WAR AND PEACE. 311
the order of Major-General Dearborn, for the defence of the curtains and
bastions of the fort and the parapets of the batteries ; that all the forts and
batteries under his command will, by the next day or day following, have an
ample supply of ordnance stores of every kind. He recommends that the
Boston and Charlestown Sea-Fencibles be stationed in the batteries to be
erected on the east and north sides of Governor's Island, every other week
alternately, with their cannon and equipments. He states that two mortars
will be placed on Governor's Island, and that furnaces will be ready suffi-
cient to supply with hot shot all the guns which can be brought to bear on
ships at the same moment in all the works on the island ; that he has
written to Commodore Bainbridge to express to him the opinion that if
the hulks are immediately sunk, and it is found that the channel is suffi-
ciently obstructed, it will be advisable to have the United States ships " In-
dependence " and " Constitution " moored above them, to co-operate with
the garrison. He next informs his correspondent of the signals which have
been established to announce the approach of the enemy, and that a guard-
boat is sent from Fort Independence every night to a point near the mouth
of the harbor, with rockets as signals. He next recommends that the troops
which are to reinforce Fort Independence and Fort Warren, in the event of
an alarm, be stationed on Dorchester Point, in the old work, with boats in
sufficient number for transportation, and a large proportion of field artillery
with case shot. He ends his letter by stating that, in the event of an alarm,
Major-General Dearborn will assume the command of the two forts, and take
the immediate command of one, while the other will be assigned to the
writer.
On the 26th the selectmen ordered that a notification as to work on the
fortifications be printed. On October 13 another public-defence address
was adopted, in regard to the completion of Fort Strong. In the same
month a conscription was proposed ; and because the Massachusetts militia
was not placed under the orders of General Dearborn, the Secretary of
State refused to pay the expense of defending Massachusetts from the com-
mon enemy. The Legislature of Massachusetts reported in favor of a
conference of States.
By November 3 several forts and works about Boston had been erected,
and then the danger or the alarm seems to have passed away ; and we find .
no more matter of interest till we read that the " joyful news of peace " ar-
rived, early in the following year, 1815.
The war with Mexico was no more popular in Massachusetts and in
Boston than the war of 1812 had been, though the reasons for its unpopu-
larity were entirely different. The war with Mexico was unpopular for the
reason that it was regarded as a war in the interest of the Slave-power ; and
although in the then division of the community into the Whig and Demo-
cratic parties, opposition to the institution of Slavery, or to its extension,
was not a direct issue, yet a third party, — the party which was afterward
312 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
to triumph under the name of Republican, and to annihilate in its rise and
progress not only the substance but even the name of the Whig party, —
was beginning to make its presence felt, and the citizens of Massachusetts
were not inclined to promote a war which was not only distant, but waged
for purposes which very many of them did not approve. It was not till
the month of May, in the year 1846, that the fact that we were at war with
Mexico came directly home to us. On the igth of that month the Sec-
retary of War enclosed to the Governor of Massachusetts a copy of a recent
Act of Congress, providing for the prosecution of the existing war between
the United States and the Republic of Mexico, and asking him " to cause
to be enrolled, and held in readiness for muster into the service of the
United States," one regiment of infantry.
By this time Boston had been for more than twenty years a city, and her
population had reached a total of upwards of 115,000 souls.
On May 26 Governor Briggs, of Massachusetts, issued a proclamation
which contained the following words: "Whatever may be the difference of
opinion as to the origin or necessity of a war, the constitutional authorities
of the country have declared that war with a foreign country actually ex-
ists;" and he called upon the citizen soldiers of Massachusetts to enroll
themselves, etc. In the following month of July there was correspondence
between the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts and the Secretary of War,
in consequence of which further proceedings in relation to the above-
mentioned requisition were suspended.
On November 16, in the same year, the Secretary of War renewed the
requisition ; and by January of the following year a regiment was so far
raised that Caleb Gushing, of Newburyport, was elected Colonel, Isaac H.
Wright, of Roxbury, Lieut-Colonel, and Edward W. Abbott, of Andover,
Major. Among the captains who were, or might be considered, Boston
men were Webster,1 Felt, and Paul, of Boston, and Bunker of Charlestown.
By February 4 following, the field and staff and non-commissioned staff
and eight companies had been mustered, and were ready to receive orders
for embarkation, which in due time came; and to Mexico the regiment went.
It is understood that the Massachusetts regiment never went into action,
in whole or in part. General Orders from the office of the Adjutant-General
of the army, dated June 8, 1848, provided that it should be sent direct to
Boston; and on the 2Oth and 2ist of the same month the barques "Vic-
tory" and "Winthrop" took four hundred and fifty of its members, appar-
ently the whole regiment, from Vera Cruz, bound for New Orleans, on their
homeward journey.
To come to the War of Secession. By the census of 1860 the pop-
ulation of Boston was declared to be about 178,000. This total would
have been made considerably larger had it included the population of the
near neighboring towns and cities, which were almost one with Boston
• 1 Captain Edward Webster was a son of Daniel Webster.
BOSTON SOLDIERY IN WAR AND PEACE. 313
commercially and socially, as well as topographically, but were not then,
any of them, included within her city limits.1
It is seldom if ever easy to look back for twenty years and tell what
were then the feelings and state of mind of one's self and one's contem-
poraries. It is the less easy to do so if the four years which followed the
period to which the attention is directed were years of exceptional trial,
excitement, and suffering. Of what may have been the general state of
mind in Boston in the winter of 1 860-61 we do not undertake to speak, but
to those who were then in the morning of their days we think that life
seemed much as usual, but perhaps a trifle pleasanter, by reason of a slight
impression of a sense of romantic possibilities near at hand. The unrest of
the South gave a piquancy to existence, such as the officers may have felt
at the Duchess of Richmond's ball, the night before Waterloo. Those
of us who were less than fifty-five or sixty years old had absolutely no
personal knowledge of war, and uniforms and martial music are always
attractive ; and to those who have never followed the drum, and know
nothing of fatigue and wounds and hunger and thirst and strain on the
nerves, and the suffering that cold and heat and dust and sleeplessness
and the other minor trials of war may bring to the soldier who is neither
wounded nor ill, soldiering seems a dashing, fascinating life.
The relation of the city of Boston to the Commonwealth of Massachu-
setts is imperfectly and incompletely indicated by a statement of the pop-
ulation of the one and of the other.2 Boston was the capital of the State,
and that was much ; yet that it had always been. But it was much more
than that. It was not only the principal city of the State and of New Eng-
land, but the first without a rival to dispute its pre-eminence. The termini
of the great railroad and steamship lines were there. The centre of thought,
the mass of wealth, the most active trade and commerce, the leading news-
papers were all there ; while the improved facilities of the Post Office, sup-
plemented by the electric telegraph, brought it into closer relations with
the most distant corner of the Commonwealth than existed between it and
Worcester at the time of the war of 1812. The very closeness of the ties
which united Boston to the towns of the Commonwealth, whether near or
far, — the very prominence of its position as a part of Massachusetts, —
make it hard to tell with accuracy what it did towards carrying on the war.
Much that was done there was done by other than Boston men. Much
that was done there by Boston men was done in the furtherance of the
good work in directions which were not distinctly, and in some cases little
or not at all, Bostonian. But as in war the last dollar often wins ; and as
many men are procured, and all are supplied and equipped and supported
by money ; and as no hostile gun was fired during the war within some
1 The population of the county of Suffolk, that Suffolk county furnished for the civil war
which included, besides the city of Boston, the 28,469 men; but this total includes large num-
city of Chelsea and the towns of North Chelsea bers of men who served in the navy, and of what
and Winthrop, was 192,678. The valuation of were known as " paper credits."
the county in 1860 was $320,000,000. It is said 2 [See Governor Long's chapter. — ED.]
VOL. III. — 40.
314 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
hundreds of miles of Boston ; and as neither the whole nor the half of what
Boston did in and for the War of Secession can here be told, — there seems
to be no better course to follow than to endeavor to tell what money the city
raised, and what troops she placed in the field.
As in the war of 1812, so in the period preceding the outbreak of the
War of Secession, public opinion was divided in Boston. The Democratic
party was strong there ; and the Democratic party had been too long and
too firmly united to the dominant party at the South to feel any sympathy
with a movement which took its rise in hostility to the most important and
most cherished institution of the South. The Democratic party did not
stand alone. The Whig party, though almost dead, was dying hard ; and
the Webster Whigs, the Silver Grays, the Bell and Everett men, the Conser-
vatives generally, were for peace at almost any price. As late as February
5, such men as Judge Curtis, Mr. Stevenson, Mr. Hillard, and Mr. Salton-
stall were speaking in Faneuil Hall in favor of the Crittenden compromise
resolutions ; but in Cambridge, six days later, Mr. Palfrey and Mr. Dana
were declaring the South to be in revolution, or in mutiny, and proclaiming
themselves to be uncompromisingly loyal to the Union.
By the morning of April 16, 1861, when Sumter had been fired upon,
companies of militia began to arrive in Boston, in obedience to the order of
the Governor, based upon a telegraphic call for troops from Washington ;
fifes and drums began to be heard, the streets were thronged with people,
flags were displayed in every direction, and the red, white, and blue rosette,
was seen on many a breast. Individuals offered pecuniary aid to soldiers'
families. The Hon. William Gray sent $10,000 to the State House. The
banks of Boston offered to lend the State $3,600,000, in advance of legis-
lative action. Many of the leading physicians of the city volunteered to
give their professional services to the families of the soldiers. The Bos-
ton bar voted to take charge of the cases of those of their brethren who
went to the war, and that liberal provision be made for their families.1 By
the iQth $30,000 had been raised in Boston to aid in the formation of a
regiment of infantry, of which more will be said in its place.
The attack on Fort Sumter had a wonderful effect upon public opinion
in Boston, as well as elsewhere. On April 16 the Boston Post, the leading
Democratic newspaper of New England, published an appeal to the people,
in which it called upon all to choose whether they would help to preserve
" our noble Republican Government," or descend into the pit of social
anarchy ; and warned them to " adjourn all other issues until this self-pre-
serving issue is settled." On the 2ist, in the Music Hall, Wendell Phillips
gave the war a welcome " hearty and hot," and said : " I rejoice, for the
first time in my Antislavery life, I stand under the stars and stripes, and
welcome the tread of Massachusetts men." On the 27th, Mr. Everett, in
1 For much of the statistical information con- in two volumes (one general, the other on the
tained in the following pages I am indebted to towns), by Mr. Schouler, for some years Adju-
the History of Massachusetts in the Civil War, taut-General of the Commonwealth.
BOSTON SOLDIERY IN WAR AND PEACE.
315
a speech made in Chester Square, declared that the Government of the
country must be sustained. He said : " Upon an issue in which the life of
the country is involved, we rally as one man to its defence. All former
differences of opinion are swept away. We forget that we ever have been
partisans : we remember only that we are Americans, and that our country
is in peril." He was followed by Mr. Hallett, one of the foremost of the
Democratic politicians of Boston and of New England, whose loyalty to the
Union, like that of Mr. Everett, from this day to the day of his death never
grew cold.
On April 15, 1861, Faneuil Hall, and all other buildings under the con-
trol of the city which were suitable for the accommodation of troops, were
placed at the disposal of the Governor. On the I9th $100,000 were ap-
propriated " for the good care and comfort of the soldiers who may be
in Boston." By April 27, 1861, the city had arranged to subsist the troops
detailed to garrison the forts in the harbor. The first detachment of these
troops, the Fourth Battalion of Infantry, composed almost wholly of young
Boston men, occupied Fort Independence on April 26.
In the ten months beginning with June, 1861, the Treasurer of the city
was authorized to borrow $100,000 for the payment of State aid to soldiers'
families, and this total gradually grew to upwards of $1,000,000; but the
whole amount was repaid to the city by the Commonwealth. In July,
1862, $300,000 were appropriated to pay bounties to such volunteers as
.might enlist to fill the quota of the city, and this sum was swelled by suc-
cessive appropriations, — the last of which seems to have been in July,
1864, — to a total of $1,380,000. The total amount of money expended by
the city, exclusive of State aid, is set down at a little over $2,500,000.
Of the hospitalities of the city to soldiers going to and returning from
the front; of the city relief committee ; of the discharged soldiers' home ; of
the " committee of one hundred," which raised and expended the Massa-
chusetts soldiers' fund; of the gifts of ice, provisions, and clothing; of Mr.
Evans's offer of the Evans House as a place of deposit for contributions
for the soldiers, and of the use made of it by Mrs. Otis, who established
there the " Bank of Faith ; " of the New England Women's auxiliary asso-
ciation, a branch of the United States sanitary commission, with head-
quarters in Boston ; of the Boston soldiers' fund, — of all these mere
mention must suffice ; and to mention these leaves almost countless other
patriotic acts and sacrifices unnoticed.
It is said that Boston furnished twenty-six thousand one hundred and
seventy-five men for the war. As about one sixth of the men furnished by
Massachusetts for the service of the United States during the war were men
in the navy, it is fair to assume that the total above given as the quota of
Boston is to be diminished by more than one sixth to approximate the
number of men furnished by her for the land service.
This showing, apparently so creditable, is unfortunately far from being
an accurate presentation of the truth. Many, very many, men took up
316 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
arms from patriotic motives, and were volunteers in fact as well as in
name ; but there were thousands and thousands of men who were perfectly
able to go, and would have made excellent soldiers, but who preferred to
stay at home. The ranks came to be rilled by men who had received boun-
ties— sometimes very large — to induce them to enlist. The fear of the
draft was great, and money was poured out freely to procure so-called vol-
unteers, and to purchase substitutes. The trade in men became brisk and
lucrative, and the character of the regiments so reinforced and so formed
depreciated in proportion. While the drag-net, baited with dollars, was
thrown out at home, desertion became common at the front. The phrase
" bounty-jumper" became as familiar as a household word. Men enlisted,
received the bounty, deserted, enlisted again, deserted, and so on; while
plenty of women were found ready to marry successively the men whose
pockets were heavy with bounty-money, and who were pretty sure not to
reappear in the scenes in which they had been mustered and received
their bonus. If these men had been all Americans, or persons resident in
America, it would have been bad enough ; but foreigners were imported in
considerable numbers for the express purpose of being placed in the ranks.
In one case some hundreds of freshly imported Germans arrived at the
front one evening, were mustered into a Massachusetts regiment of the very
first class, and the next morning were thrust into one of the bloodiest
battles of the war, without being so much as able to understand the words
of command. Enough was done and suffered by Massachusetts men in
the war to afford just ground for pride ; but when we exult over the upris-
ing of a great people, we of Massachusetts and of Boston must not forget
that there were shadows to the picture. Had the men of Boston in July,
1863, been as full of patriotic fervor and the spirit of self-sacrifice as were
the early volunteers, public opinion would have been such that even the
short-lived riot which then disturbed the peace of the city could not have
taken place.
It is hard to say what regiments of infantry and cavalry and batteries
of artillery Boston sent to the field, because it is probable that there was
not a single organization all the members of which came from its people.
It is coming pretty near the truth to say that the ist, 2d, 9th, i ith, I2th,
1 3th, iQth, 20th, 24th, 28th, 32d, 33d, 35th, and 56th regiments of infantry,
the 3d regiment of heavy artillery, the ist, 2d, 3d, 6th, roth, nth, I2th, and
1 3th batteries, and the ist, 2d, 3d, and 4th regiments of cavalry, were from
Boston, — that is to say, the majority, or at least a large part, of their offi-
cers and men were Boston men. The 54th and 55th regiments of colored
infantry, and the 5th regiment of colored cavalry, were raised largely under
Boston influence. To these may be added the 44th and 45th regiments
of infantry, which were especially Boston regiments ; but they enlisted only
for nine months, and were not much exposed, and had less than one per
cent of their numbers killed in action. Of the three-years' regiments the
ist was a militia regiment, which volunteered for the war. The 9th and
BOSTON SOLDIERY IN WAR AND PEACE.
317
28th were Irish regiments. The 2d, 2Oth, and 24th were raised under
more or less exceptional circumstances, especially the 2d.
In the formation of all these three regiments, and to a considerable ex-
tent in that of the ist and 2d cavalry, the officers were mainly selected by
other judges than the men of their commands or the officials at the State
House. In the formation of the other regiments and batteries, company
officers were usually elected by their men, and the field and staff appointed
at the State House. A comparison of the returns of the loss by death of
some fourteen of these regiments shows a remarkable evenness of experience.
GENERAL THOMAS G. STEVENSON/
In eight of them it was about ten per cent. One, which was thrust into
the bloody battles of the Wilderness almost as soon as it left the camp
where it was formed, lost about sixteen per cent by death. The loss of the
other three was from twelve to fifteen per cent. In the percentage of killed
in action, omitting those who died from wounds or disease, there is a dis-
crepancy as remarkable, — the percentage ranging from less than three to
1 [General Stevenson was born in Boston in lina campaign. He became brigadier-general
1836, — a son of the Hon. J. Thomas Stevenson. Dec. 27, 1862, and was in the attack on Fort
He was a captain of the Massachusetts militia Wagner. He was in command of the first di-
when the war broke out. He became colonel of vision, ninth corps, when he fell near Spottsyl-
the 24th regiment, and led it in the North Caro- vania, May 10, 1864. — ED.]
3-8
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
over seven per cent. The actual loss in action of the 2Oth regiment was
much the largest, — one hundred and ninety-two against one hundred and
sixty-one in the regiment which came next to it; but the 2Oth not only
had a large number of men on its rolls than any other regiment of infan-
try from Massachusetts included in the above list, but had the fortune to be
GENERAL WILLIAM F. BAKTLE'lT.1
almost always actively engaged. General Orders from the headquarters of
the army of the Potomac, dated March I, 1865, specifying the names of the
actions in which the regiments and batteries of the army of the Potomac
had borne a meritorious part, and which they were ordered to have in-
1 [General Bartlett was born at Haverhill,
June 6, 1840, — the son of a Boston merchant.
He was appointed captain in the 2oth Massa-
chusetts regiment, July 10, 1861, while yet a
student at Harvard. He became colonel of the
49th regiment, Nov. 10, 1862, and distinguished
himself at Port Hudson. The next year he was
made colonel of the 57th Massachusetts regi-
ment, and was in the Battles of the Wilderness.
He became brigadier-general of volunteers, June
21, 1864, and commanded a division of the ninth
corps ; and was captured before Petersburg, July
30, 1864. He was exchanged in September, and
at the close of the war was brevetted major-gen-
eral. He lost a leg, and was otherwise wounded,
during his service. He died Dec. 17, 1876.— ED.]
BOSTON SOLDIERY IN WAR AND PEACE.
319
scribed on their colors or guidons, assigned to that regiment a number
greater than that assigned to any other infantry regiment in that army.
The loss of this regiment from desertion was also small, — about seven per
cent, — while the average loss was about twelve per cent. The table on the
next page may be found interesting; but in consulting it, it must be remem-
bered that the 32d, 33d, and 35th regiments of infantry did not go to the
COLONEL PAUL J. REVERE.1
front till after the first of July, 1862, when the fighting of the Peninsula
campaign, so called, was ended; that the 54th and 55th regiments of infan-
try were not organized till 1863, nor the 56th till 1864; that the 1st and
2d cavalry were three battalion regiments, each battalion containing four
companies, and that they thus had a considerably larger number of officers
than the infantry regiments ; that the 3d cavalry was, from its organization
1 [Colonel Revere was born in Boston, Nov. the colonelcy of the 2Oth in April, 1863. He was
10, 1832; graduated at Harvard College in 1852; mortally wounded, July 2, 1863, at Gettysburg,
became major of the 2Oth Massachusetts Volun- and died July 5. He is buried at Mount Auburn,
teers in July, 1861 ; advanced to a lieutenant- A sketch of his life, by General W. R. Lee, is
colonelcy on the staff in September, 1862, and to in Harvard Memorial Biographies, i. 204. — ED.]
320
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
in the autumn of 1862, an infantry regiment, till midsummer of 1863, when
it was "converted into a regiment of cavalry" by General Banks, and had
three companies added to it. The formation of the 2d cavalry also dates
from the autumn of 1862. The fortune of war made the experiences of
commands so different, that only general results can be arrived at by a
comparison of the returns. Thus the ipth Massachusetts, though brigaded
with the 2Oth, was absent from several engagements in which the 2Oth took
part in the first year of the war, and engaged at least once when the 2Oth
was not : —
ORGANIZATION.
TOTAL.
Killed in Action.
Died of Wounds,
Disease, etc.
Deserted.
First Regiment Infantry
1081
qi
88
I cc
Second Regiment Infantry
2767
Il6
ir6
276
Ninth Regiment Infantry
IO22
I V?
IOC
241
Eleventh Regiment Infantry
242"?
85
IA7
128
Twelfth Regiment Infantry
17 58
128
1-6
101
Thirteenth Regiment Infantry
Nineteenth Regiment Infantry
1584
240Q
71
104
75
160
I/I
174
Twentieth Regiment Infantry
72 7O
1 02
IQ'
220
Twenty-fourth Regiment Infantry
2116
6-?
147
1 12
Twenty-eighth Regiment Infantry
2SO4
161
288
Thirty-second Regiment Infantry
2060
70
108
161
Thirty-third Regiment Infantry
Thirty-fifth Regiment Infantry
Fifty-fourth Regiment Infantry (black)
1412
1665
I C74
69
91
Ci
107
134
79
40
4O
Fifty-fifth Regiment Infantry (black)
I2QC
C2
*>4
112
27
Fifty-sixth Regiment Infantry
I "UO
60
1 20
Third Heavy Artillery .
^isS
I
181
First Battery .
11Q '
7
Second Battery
41 C
I
*5
11
Third Battery
->i8
6
*5
Q
Sixth Battery
4CI
c
C7
Tenth Battery
274
4
IQ
Eleventh Battery
IQQ
2
j I
I
Twelfth Battery
1OO
•»c
7C
Thirteenth Battery
•ice
26
QQ
First Cavalry
2767
40
167
161
Second Cavalry
2841
62
147
622
Third Cavalry
26?'?
60
20 1
172
Fourth Cavalry
2Ol8
21
121
Fifth Cavalry (black)
1516
IT7
!•» A
The regiments of colored infantry lost heavily, — the 54th about thirteen
per cent, and the 55th over fourteen per cent; but the killed in action in
each of these regiments was to their deaths from other causes as one to
two and one half, or three ; while in the white regiments it was in four cases
as great or greater, and in three exceeded three-quarters. It should be
BOSTON SOLDIERY IN WAR AND PEACE.
321
COLONEL ROBERT GOULD SHAW.1
said further to the credit of these colored regiments, that the percentage of
desertion in neither reached three per cent. The colored cavalry regiment
had not a man killed, but lost about eight per cent by death and the
same by desertion. The losses in the cavalry regiments proper, — that is,
excluding the converted 41 st infantry, — ranged from seven to eight per
cent. Desertion in the ist cavalry was small, — only six per cent. In the
4th it was about thirteen per cent, while in the 2d2 it rose to the enormous
1 [Colonel Shaw was born in Boston, Oct.
10, 1837, the son of Francis G. Shaw, and grand-
son of Robert G. Shaw, the well known merchant
of Boston. He served a brief term in Washing-
ton, on the outbreak of the war, as a private in
the New York Seventh Militia regiment; and,
May 28, was made a second lieutenant in the
Second Massachusetts Volunteers. He became
first lieutenant, July 8, 1861 ; and captain, Aug.
10, 1862 ; and then, when the 54th Massachusetts
Regiment was formed, — the first of the colored
regiments recruited under State authority, — he
became its colonel, April 17, 1863; and died at
VOL. III. — 41.
their head, July 18, 1863, in an attack on Fort
Wagner, South Carolina, and was buried with
his men, where they fell. See Harvard Memo-
rial Biographies, ii. 172. — ED.]
2 I have it from good authority that the de-
sertion from the second cavalry was almost
wholly from the seven companies enlisted in
Massachusetts, and that from the five companies
which came from California there was scarcely
any. It occurred almost entirely before the re-
cruits were sent forward from the State, and on
the way to the field. It is understood to have
been owing to the fact that the better class of
322
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
number of six hundred and twenty-two in two thousand eight hundred and
forty-one, or nearly twenty-two per cent. The losses in the batteries were
heavy, but only in two instances seemed to have reached ten per cent,
while the desertion from them was generally creditably small.
LIEUT.-COLONEL WILDER DWIGHT.1
The general reputation of the Massachusetts troops was extremely good,
and there were none among them better than some of the organizations
which have been named as coming from Boston. If the Governor and
people of Massachusetts had been as eager to keep the early regiments
full, as they were to furnish their quota in such a way as to make sure that
no man should go to the war who did not wish to, it is probable that by
midsummer of 1863 the Massachusetts contingent would have been as fine a
real volunteers was exhausted, that high bounties
had begun, and that anything in the shape of a
man which the medical officer would pass, was
eagerly taken, regardless of quality, to fill the
quota. Men under sentence are said to have
been released from jail on condition of enlisting.
As soon as the bounty was paid, the first oppor-
tunity to desert was seized. Some of these men
were so mutinous one day in Boston that Colonel
Lowell shot one of them dead.
1 [This cut follows a likeness prefixed to the
Life and Letters of Wilder Lhvight, by his mother,
Boston, 1868. A briefer narrative by the same
is given in the Harv. Mem. Biog., i. 252, under
the class of 1853. He was wounded at Antietam,
Sept. 17, 1862, and died two days later. He is
buried in Forest Hills Cemetery. His brothers,
William, Jr., and Howard, were respectively brig-
adier-general and captain. The latter was killed
by guerillas in Louisiana, May 4, 1863. — ED.]
BOSTON SOLDIERY IN WAR AND PEACE.
323
body of troops as the world has often seen. The men were intelligent, apt,
reasonable, healthy, patient, and brave, ready to submit to discipline as
soon as they perceived its meaning and value ; ready and able to march all
day and all night when the occasion called for it; ready to die in their
MAJOR HENRY L. ABBOTT.1
places so long as their orders bade them to stand and the evil hour lasted.
It was a shame to pour in among such soldiers the scum and refuse of
humanity which the pernicious bounty system turned in their direction.2
1 [Major Abbott, the son of Hon. Josiah G.
Abbott, was born in Lowell, Jan. 21, 1842 ; gradu-
ated at Harvard in 1860. On the outbreak of
the war he did a brief garrison duty at Fort In-
dependence, and was commissioned second lieu-
tenant in the 2Oth Massachusetts Regiment on
July 10, 1861 ; first lieutenant. Nov. 8, 1861 ; a
captain, Aug. 29, 1862; and major, May i, 1863.
He was killed at the Battle of the Wilderness,
May, 6, 1864, and his commissions as brevet
colonel and brevet brigadier-general date from
that day. He was in most of the considerable
battles in which the army of the Potomac was
engaged, and for a long time commanded his
regiment. His record is admirably recounted by
the writer of this chapter in the Harvard Me-
morial Biographies, ii. 91. — ED.]
- [It will be remembered that while Bur-
goyne's army was in Cambridge, a practice ob-
tained of recruiting the Massachusetts quota of
the Continental army by enlisting deserters from
this convention camp, and that it met the earnest
protest of Washington. Sparks's Washington,
v. 287, 297. — ED.]
324
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
SOLDIERS' MONUMENT ON THE COMMON. l
Brilliant as were the records of many of these bodies of men, there was
probably not one among them that did not suffer in reputation and fall be-
1 [This monument, executed by Martin Mil- bears the following inscription, which was fur-
more, sculptor, was dedicated Sept. 17, 1877. It nished by President Eliot of Harvard University :
BOSTON SOLDIERY IN WAR AND PEACE. 325
low its own ideal, because of the contaminating flood which was let loose
upon them. To such pollution was due the death of a gallant captain of a
distinguished Massachusetts regiment, murdered by the camp-fire on the
ground of his own company, and almost certainly by one of his own bad
men, who was never brought to justice.
The system of bounties would have been bad enough if it had stood
alone, but it was coupled with another evil, — the constant formation of
new organizations. It was natural that men should flock into them, for it
meant for all a period of easy life so long as the formation was completing,
while enlistment in a regiment or battery in the field meant a speedy plunge
into the grim realities of war. It meant for the best men a vastly greater
chance of promotion. Corporals and sergeants had all to be made, and a
man who showed himself an efficient and serviceable sergeant in the home
camp had a good chance of soon finding himself a lieutenant. But so it
was ; and by reason of this course of action at home our best regiments saw
their numbers dwindling, and only feebly swelled from time to time by men
generally of low quality, while up to the very end of the war they saw fine
detachments of recruits arriving to enter the Western regiments, which came
from States where a wiser policy prevailed.
It would not be easy, and it would be invidious, to attempt to range the
Boston regiments on a scale of merit ; and the little that may be said must
be said with diffidence. The ist and 2d Massachusetts cavalry regiments
and some of the Boston batteries were probably as good as any cavalry
of volunteer artillery in the service ; and some of the Boston infantry
regiments had certainly no superiors in our armies, whether regular or vol-
unteer. The Second regiment had a peculiar origin and a grand history. It
was raised by authority from the Secretary of War, and the appointment of
officers was left to its projectors and organizers, — two graduates of West
Point, who became its Colonel and Lieut-Colonel, and Wilder Dwight, a
young Boston lawyer of great promise, who was the life of the enterprise,
and who became Major of the regiment. A very large sum of money
was raised to facilitate the project. The very best young men of Boston
and its vicinity sought and obtained commissions as line officers, while the
" To the men of Boston, who died for their coun- work of Milmore, costing $20,000, and dedicated
try on land and sea in the war which kept the in 1872, with an address (printed) by Richard
Union whole, destroyed Slavery, and maintained Frothingham ; one at Dorchester, after a design
the Constitution, the grateful city has built this by B. F. Dwight, thirty-one feet high, dedicated
monument, that their example may speak to Sept. 17, 1867; one in Forest Hills Cemetery
coming generations." The city printed an Army in Roxbury, designed by Milmore, representing
and Navy Monument Memorial the same year, an infantry soldier, erected in 1867 ; one in Ja-
including photographs of the monument, its maica Plain, thirty-four feet high, designed by
sculptured figures and reliefs, and the chief \V. W. Lummis, and dedicated Sept. 14, 1871,
address of the occasion, delivered by General with an address by the Rev. James Freeman
Charles Devens. The monument is over sev- Clarke; one in Evergreen Cemetery, Brighton,
enty feet high, and the figure on the top eleven thirty feet high, dedicated July 26, 1866, with
feet. It cost $75,000. There are other monu- an address by the Rev. Frederic A. Whitney,
merits erected in the same spirit in other parts It cost about $5,000. King's Handbook of Boston,
of the city, — one at Charlestown, likewise the pp 83-90. — ED.]
326 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
men were the cream of the volunteers of Massachusetts, the choice offering
of the first fresh enthusiasm of the time. The discipline of the regiment
was admirable. The fortune of war kept it long out of action, but in cov-
ering Banks's retreat in 1862 it so bore itself as to win the highest commen-
dation from Southern officers. There is probably nowhere in print such a
tribute to the gallantry of Northern soldiers from the Southern side as is to
be found in Allan's Valley Campaign, where he tells how Andrews and the
Second Massachusetts contested Jackson's advance near Winchester. So
long as this regiment was in the army of the Potomac it bore itself gallantly,
and distinguished itself particularly at Cedar Mountain and at Gettysburg.
Afterward it was sent to the West, and was one of the few Eastern regi-
ments which made the march to the sea with Sherman ; and at Averysboro',
at the very end of Sherman's campaign, and at the end of the war, it moved
gallantly out with scant numbers to face the enemy ; and one of its captains,
leading forward his company, which the policy of Massachusetts had left
of about the size of a corporal's guard, was shot dead just before the bugles
sang truce.
The vigor and splendid gallantry of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts in-
fantry at the assault on Fort Wagner proved to the world that the African
race would make excellent soldiers when properly trained and led. Their
Colonel and Lieut.-Colonel were Shaw and Hallowell, who came to these
positions, the one from the Second and the other from the Twentieth Massa-
chusetts infantry. The Second and the Twentieth, though they seldom
served together, were always mutually attached, and emulous of each other.
They had many points of similarity. They were officered from very much
the same social class.
Of the early history of the Twentieth it is not well for the writer of
this paper to speak; J but from the end of 1862 to the end of the war
the discipline maintained in it was exact, like that of the Second, and
both regiments showed many shining examples of brilliant bravery and
tenacity.
At Fredericksburg the Twentieth crossed the river in boats under fire,
1 [The Editor may venture to add that Gen- mon with the rest of Sedgwick's Division, and
eral Palfrey was commissioned Lieut.-Colonel of where Colonel Palfrey was severely wounded,
this regiment at its organization in 1861 ; that he It is not too much to say, that the reputation
served with it continuously on the Potomac of the Twentieth was established during this
(commanding it during the captivity of Colonel period, — a reputation for discipline, gallantry,
Lee, from Oct. 21, 1861, to May i, 1862), before and steadiness, which was accorded to it by
Yorktown, and in the whole Peninsular cam- common consent, and which it maintained
paign ; that the regiment bore a distinguished throughout the war; and that in the formation
part in the battles of Fair Oaks, Savage's Sta- of this reputation Colonel Palfrey ably seconded
tion, and Glendale, in which last engagement it the efforts and example of the gallant officer in
was directly commanded by its Lieut.-Colonel, command of the regiment, Colonel William
Colonel Lee commanding the brigade ; that Raymond Lee, in whose stead he acted for
Colonel Palfrey commanded the regiment dur- over eight months of its first year of service,
ing the stay at Harrison's Landing and the General Palfrey's wound, unfortunately for
withdrawal from the Peninsula, and until the himself and for his command, proved so se-
battle of the Antietam, where the regiment was in vere as to unfit him for further active service,
the hottest of the fight, and lost heavily in com- — ED.]
BOSTON SOLDIERY IN WAR AND PEACE. 327
and cleared the main street leading from the river, losing thirty-five out
of the sixty men of its leading company, and having ninety-seven officers
and men killed and wounded in the space of about fifty yards. It made
the forced march of over thirty miles to Gettysburg without having a
single man straggle from the colors. It was part of the mass of men who
hurried to the spot where Pickett's division had made a partial lodgment in
our line on Cemetery Ridge ; and when the fierce attack had failed, it was
reduced to the complement of a company, — one hundred and two men, of
whom three were officers. At Bristoe Station it took guns from A. P. Hill's
corps. On a day of disaster before Petersburg, when the enemy had turned
our left, and was rolling up our line and capturing regiment after regiment,
it changed front under fire, stopped the enemy's advance, and saved the
troops in the line to its right. It gave Putnam, Lowell, two Reveres, Ab-
bott, Patten, Babo, Wesselhoeft, Ropes, Paine, and eight more officers, to
the list of those who were killed in action or died of wounds received there.
As the Second shared in the great review as a part of Sherman's army, so
the Twentieth shared in it as a part of the army of the Potomac, with a rec-
ord of some thirty battles.
Among the officers of the Boston regiments were Welles of the ist,
afterward killed while in command of the 35th Massachusetts, and Major
Chandler, also of the ist; Savage, Mudge, Dwight, Abbott, Cary, Robeson,
Goodwin, Grafton, and Perkins of the 2d, who all were killed or died of
wounds received in action ; Gordon of the 2d, who became a Brigadier, and
was brevetted Major-General ; Colonel Cass of the Qth, Colonel Webster of
the I2th, and Lieut-Colonel Merriam of the i6th, all killed in action;
Colonel Hinks of the iQth, who became a Brigadier and Brevet Major-Gen-
eral ; Bartlett and Macy of the 2Oth, one of whom lost a leg and one a
hand, and both of whom were brevetted Major-General ; Colonel Stevenson
of the 24th, who was killed near Spottsylvania as a Brigadier-General com-
manding a division ; Colonel Prescott of the 32d, who died of wounds re-
ceived in action ; Underwood of the 2d and 33d, afterward a Brigadier and
Brevet Major-General; Colonel Wilde of the 35th, promoted Brigadier-
General, and Sidney Willard of the same regiment, killed at Fredericksburg;
Colonel Griswold of the 56th, killed in the Wilderness ; and the very gallant
and accomplished Colonel Lowell of the 2d cavalry, killed in the Valley
campaign of 1864.
No Boston man was made a Major-General in the War of Secession ;
but the same is true of the men of Massachusetts, if we except General
Banks and General Butler, who did not rise by regular promotion to
that grade, -but reached it at a bound on the stroke of a pen at Wash-
ington. Several Boston men became Brigadiers, — as Cowdin, Gordon,
Andrews, Hayes, Bartlett, Stevenson, Paine, Wilde, — and most of these
received the brevet of Major-General. The brevet of Brigadier-General
was given to many Colonels and Lieut-Colonels who went from Boston.
Disabling wounds or death fell to the lot of so many of the Boston officers,
328 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
by reason of the fact that the best young men of the period went into the
infantry instead of seeking positions on the staff, or even in the artillery or
the cavalry, that few of them lived or preserved their health long enough
to rise high. It should never be forgotten that Boston gave freely of her
very best to the infantry, which does the fighting and bears the losses.
This means more than the general public is aware of. The 2d and 2Oth
infantry, with their 5,997 men, had 308 killed in action; the ist and 2d
cavalry, with 5,608 men, had ill killed. The 2d and 2Oth infantry lost
thirty-four officers, of whom twenty were killed in action; the ist and 2d
cavalry, with their more numerous officers, lost seventeen, of whom nine
were killed in action. The eight batteries which we have credited to Bos-
ton, with 2,631 men, had twenty-three killed in action, of whom three were
officers. Combine and analyze the figures as one will, and it will appear to
have been many times more dangerous to be in the Massachusetts infantry
regiments than in the Massachusetts artillery, and nearly or quite twice as
dangerous as to be in the Massachusetts cavalry. The staff, of course,
was comparatively safe. Wherever our Boston regiments went, it was
common for the officers to find their friends from New York serving
not in the line, but upon the staff; and this -was almost equally true as
to Philadelphia.
The Boston men who filled the ranks of the regiments and batteries
which have been named as coming more from Boston than from elsewhere,
saw service almost everywhere. In all the campaigns and battles of the
army of the Potomac, from the first Bull Run to Lee's surrender, many of
them were present. At Fair Oaks and Glendale and Malvern Hill, at the
second Bull Run, at the Antietam, at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville,
at Gettysburg and Bristoe Station, in the Wilderness and at Spottsylvania,
at Cold Harbor and before Petersburg, at Deep Bottom and Ream's Station
and the Boydton Road, at Roanoke Island and Newbern and Olustee,
from Lookout Mountain to Atlanta, from Atlanta to Savannah, and from
Savannah through the Carolinas, — from the first clash of arms in the sum-
mer of 1 86 1, to the firing of the last shot in the spring of 1865, the white
flag with the arms of Massachusetts was to be seen ; and wherever it waved,
brave men from Boston fought and fell.
The militia of Massachusetts has been, ever since the end of the War of
Secession, a favorite object for our legislators to try their plastic hands
upon. In 1864 Colonel Henry Lee, who had served long and efficiently on
the personal staff of the Governor of Massachusetts, printed a very elab-
orate pamphlet of one hundred and thirty pages,1 in which he laid down
what he considered to be the true basis for a satisfactory militia system ;
urging especially reduction in numbers, uniformity of organization, the
furnishing by the General Government of arms and equipments, the framing
of a code of tactics expressly for the militia, the creation of a general mili-
1 Entitled, The Militia of the United States : What it has been ; What it should be.
BOSTON SOLDIERY IN WAR AND PEACE. 329
tia staff, and rudimentary instruction in tactics in every public school. Large
use of his labors was made by the commission which had much to do with
framing the existing militia law of Massachusetts.
The pressure of the war being removed, our legislators went busily to
work on the militia. In thirteen years they established three systems,
and filled more than one hundred and fifty pages ' of our statute book
with provisions in regard to the militia. The law now in force was passed
in 1878. It is the shortest and much the best of the three. It provides
that, " to resist invasion, quell insurrection, and in the suppression of riots
to aid civil officers in the execution of the laws of the Commonwealth,
or in time of public danger, the volunteer militia shall first be ordered
into service." The law provides for sixty companies of infantry, three
companies of cavalry, three four-gun batteries, and two corps of cadets.
The infantry companies are to consist of from forty-one to fifty-nine
men, with a captain and two lieutenants ; the cavalry companies of from
fifty-six to seventy-seven men, and a captain and two lieutenants ; the bat-
teries of from fifty-seven to eighty- three men, with a captain and three
lieutenants. These troops are assigned to two brigades, each of which is
to contain six infantry regiments, each of two or three battalions, and each
battalion to contain four companies. The number of enlisted men in the
companies of cadets is not limited, and each may have a lieut.-colonel,
major, staff, and not to exceed four captains, four first, and four second
lieutenants. Original enlistment is for three years ; afterward it may be
for one, two, or three years, at the option of the individual. Nine years
of continuous service exempts from jury duty for life.
The existing system is thought to have worked well. The present con-
dition of the militia is good, and probably as good as it is likely to be.
The men have enthusiasm, a good amount of pride, and of soldierly spirit.
Relatively they are better than their officers ; but the officers are improving
under the established practice of requiring them to pass an examination
before receiving promotion. The weakest part of the system is the want
of control of the colonels, who, once commissioned, are not easy to remove,
and of whom several are at the present time not up to the mark. A strong
and independent adjutant-general is the only remedy for this; but it is
hardly possible for an adjutant-general, whose tenure of office is what it is in
Massachusetts, to reach this standard, though the present adjutant-general
is well spoken of. It is desirable that the individual holding so important
a position should have had experience of real service, or West-Point train-
ing, and important that he should not be given to red-tapism, and two rigid
construction of the letter of the law and regulations. Our code of regula-
tions is excellent. It is modelled largely upon the English code, and is
likely to be followed, with such changes as their laws may make necessary,
by New York and by Maine. Properly construed and applied, it will be
most useful ; but too rigid construction is undesirable, as it tends to discour-
age men who would make excellent officers from taking or holding com-
VOL. in. — 42.
330 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
missions. The unnecessary multiplication of the clerical business of the
officer is especially to be avoided. The ideal adjutant-general will take
broad and not narrow views. What is best in our militia is due to the
prevailing soldierly enthusiasm. There is next to no power anywhere to
force militia-men in time of peace to be good soldiers ; and this defect is
one which appears to be irremovable.
Our infantry is well equipped and fairly well drilled, and is much the
best of our militia, though one of our batteries is good. The cavalry is as
good as militia cavalry anywhere ; but from the nature of the case militia
cavalry is practically valueless as cavalry. Both horses and men must be
trained, and trained together, to make good cavalry. The medical depart-
ment of our militia is the ablest branch of the service, and is positively
excellent. The first corps of cadets has been for many years under the
command of a rarely accomplished and indefatigable officer, and under his
influence it has made remarkable progress in the direction of military
efficiency, and is now the example which the rest of the militia strives to
equal.
Whether our militia will ever improve, or even continue to be as good
as it is now, will depend very much upon the degree to which the poli-
ticians will let it alone. The men are capable and willing, and to very many
of the officers a commission means work, and not play or show ; but there
must not be frequent changes in high places, or appointments or changes
for other than sound moral and military reasons, if the Massachusetts
militia is to be an institution of value.
CHAPTER V.
THE NAVY, AND THE CHARLESTOWN NAVY YARD.
BY REAR-ADMIRAL GEO. HENRY PREBLE, U.S.N.
THE naval history of Boston for the last one hundred years is not
replete with exciting incidents. It exhibits in the main the growth
and development of a great naval establishment for the building and re-
pair of the ships of the United States. Many ships of war which have
since become historic have been launched, but no great naval battle has
been fought within its harbor.1
In 1789 the ship "Massachusetts" was built at Germantown, — a large,
double-headed promontory, jutting into Boston Bay, in the town of Quincy.
The " Massachusetts " was the largest merchant vessel which at that time
had been built on this continent, her keel being one hundred and sixteen
feet in length. She was a frigate-built ship, of nearly one thousand tons
burden, pierced for thirty-six guns, of a remarkably fine model, and con-
structed in the most thorough manner. People came from all parts of
the country to witness her launch, and the day was one of jubilee and
rejoicing.2
1 The correspondence of the commandants of 2 Quincy, in his Memoir of Major Samuel
the Navy Yard with the Department and Bureau Shaw, says: "On this interesting occasion the
at Washington, since 1816, and the log-books or hills around Germantown and the boats which
journals of the Yard at Charlestown index suf- covered the harbor and river were filled with spec-
ficiently the principal naval events of the one tators from Boston and the neighboring country,
hundred years ; and these, supplemented by the Both the English and French naval commanders,
newspapers of the day, furnish ample material at that time visiting Boston in national ships,
for a much more extended naval history of Bos- expressed their admiration of the model of this
ton than this chapter can afford. Under an or- vessel ; and afterward it was pronounced by naval
der from the Navy Department, dated May 22, commanders at Batavia and Canton as perfect as
1874, the writer of this chapter was detailed to the then state of art would permit." The French
special duty to write the histories of the Boston squadron referred to consisted of the "Patriot,"
and Portsmouth Navy Yards. Having accom- 74, Admiral De Ponderez, and "Leopard," 74,
plished the duty, he reported his results to commanded by Monsieur De la Galissoniere.
the Department ; but the histories of those The " Patriot " a few months before had been dis-
Yards remain on file, in MS., in the Bureau of tinguished by taking that unfortunate monarch,
Yards and Docks, at the Navy Department. Louis XVI., when visiting Cherbourg, a few
[Admiral Preble has touched some parts of leagues into the Atlantic, and giving him a sight
this subject already in his Notes on Ship-Build- of that ocean. The "Leopard" was a splendid
ing in Massachusetts, published in the N. E. Hist, ship; and not far below the castle was anchored
and Geneal. Keg. ; nor is his elaborate History of the " Penelope," 32, an English frigate, com-
the Flag of the United States, 2d ed., 1880, with- mancled by Captain John Linzee, one of the
out interest in this connection. — ED.] squadron of Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Hughes.
332 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
The " Massachusetts " was built under the direction of Major Shaw, for
an East India trader; and with Captain Job Prince as commander, and a
crew of seventy-five officers and men, with twenty guns mounted, she pro-
ceeded on a voyage to Batavia and Canton, where she arrived without
accident, notwithstanding the prediction of Moll Pitcher, the famous
fortune-teller of Lynn, that the ship would be lost on the voyage and all
hands perish. She made the passage to Batavia in one hundred and
fifty-eight days, and was sold at Canton, to the Danish East India Com-
pany, for $65,000.
Edmund Hart's ship-yard will be ever famous as the place where the
U. S. frigate "Constitution" was built. Before the establishment of govern-
ment dockyards, private yards were used for building our national vessels;
and Hart's for a long time went by the name of " Hart's Naval Yard." l
The depredations of Algerine corsairs upon our mercantile marine in-
duced Congress to authorize the purchase or building of four ships, to carry
forty-four guns each, and two to carry thirty-six guns. Their act was ap-
proved by the President, March 27, 1794, and the keel of the "Constitution"
was laid by Mr. Hart the November following, and preparations made for
setting up her frames. The first official mention of her by name is in a
report from a committee on the state of naval equipments, etc., to the
United States House of Representatives, dated Jan. 25, 1797, which says:
" The frigate building at Boston, called the ' Constitution,' is in such a state
of forwardness that it is supposed she can be launched in July."
The "Constitution" was designed by Joshua Humphreys, of Philadelphia,
and constructed under the superintendence of Colonel George Claghorne, of
New Bedford. Captains Barry, Dale, and Truxton, of the navy, agreed upon
her dimensions, with Mr. Humphreys, who prepared the drafts, moulds, and
building instructions. It was decided that the frame should be of live-oak
and red cedar, the keel, keelson beams, and planking, etc., of the best white
oak, decks of the best Carolina pitch-pine, but under the guns to be of oak.
John T. Morgan, a master-shipwright of Boston, was sent to Savannah and
Charleston to procure the live-oak, red cedar, and pitch-pine for all the
frigates. The original draft of the "Constitution" was changed at the sug-
gestion of Colonel Claghorne, to whom her construction was confided. A
portion of the timber used was taken from the woods of Allentown, on
the borders of the Merrimac, fifty miles from the ship-yard.2
1 On the map of 1722 the yard is designated at the South End, made her gun-carriages. Isaac
as "Thornton's," and the site is now covered by Harris, who worked as an apprentice in the mast
Constitution Wharf, — so named because the yard in 1797, put new masts into the frigate dur-
frigate "Constitution" was built there. The ing the war of 1812. To him is conceded, in this
frigates " Constitution " and " Boston," and the country, the honor of first making ships' masts
brig "Argus" were all built in Hart's Yard, in sections, and he constructed the first masting
For Hart and his yard, see Drake's Landmarks, sheers used at the Charlestown Navy Yard.
181. The anchors were made in Hanover, Plymouth
2 Paul Revere furnished the copper bolts and County, Massachusetts, and her sails in the Old
spikes, drawn from malleable copper, by a process Granary building, at the corner of Park and
then new; and Ephraim Thayer, who had a shop Tremont streets. No other building in Boston
THE NAVY, AND THE CHARLESTOWN NAVY YARD. 333
Her first battery — that which she carried throughout the war of 1812,
and long after — bore the monogram " G.R.," showing its English origin.
Mr. Hartley, of Boston, was appointed to assist Colonel Claghorne, and
Captain Samuel Nicholson, of the navy, exercised a general supervision,
aided by General Henry Jackson and Major Gibbs, of Boston, Edmund
Hart being the master-carpenter. At last, Sept. 20, 1797, was announced
as the day for her launch. Commodore Nicholson left the yard to get his
breakfast, with express orders not to hoist any flag over her till his return,
designing that honor for his own hands; but during his absence Samuel
Bentley, a shipwright and calker, assisted by a comrade named Harris,
hoisted the Stars and Stripes, which thus for the first time floated over
this historic ship. The Commodore, on his return, expressed himself in
words more strong than polite at this disobedience of his orders. People
poured into the town from all quarters to witness the launch, and several
hundred went over to Noddle's Island to get a better view. The day was
pleasant though cold, and the neighboring wharves were crowded with
spectators, who were warned that the passage of so large a vessel into the
water would create a swell which might endanger their safety. At high
water, just twenty minutes after eleven, the signal was given, but the ship
would not start until screws and other machinery had been applied, and
then she moved only about twenty-seven feet. Mr. Claghorne wrote the
Secretary of War: " Concluding some hidden cause had impeded her
progress, and the tide ebbing fast, I decided it to be most prudent to block
and shore her up, and examine carefully into the cause of .the stopping;
and found that the ways had settled about an inch, which, added to some
other cause of no great importance, had occasioned the obstruction." Her
colors were then hauled down, and the multitude dispersed, disappointed
and anxious.
The next day the ship was raised two inches by means of wedges ; her
bilge-ways were then taken out, and apparent defects remedied. Every-
thing being in order, another attempt was made on the 22d, when she
moved about thirty-one feet, and then stopped, as though still reluctant
to enter her destined element. On examination it was found that the
ways erected on the new wharf (which had only been built for her to
pass over, and not to rest upon) had settled one and five-eighths of an
inch, which the incline of the ways was insufficient to overcome. The
vessel might have been forced off, but the constructor decided not to
attempt so hazardous a measure. Colonel Claghorne says in his report:
" I had formed the inclined plane upon the smallest angle that I conceived would
convey the ship into the water, in order that she might make her plunge with the least
violence, and thereby prevent any strain or injury. I must now give the ways more
descent, which will remedy the defect occasioned by the settling of the new wharf;
was large enough. The duck for the sails was their factory on the corner of Tremont and Boyl-
made by an incorporated company in Boston, in ston streets.
334 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
and I am fully confident that the next trial, at high tide, in October, will be attended
with success. In the mean time I shall proceed in completing the ship on the stocks."
Saturday, Oct. 21, 1797, — which was noted as the anniversary of Col-
umbus's discovery of America, — a third attempt to launch the ship was
made, and proved successful. The day was overcast and cold, with an
easterly wind, so but few people assembled.1 A few specially-invited dig-
nitaries gathered within the narrow limits of the yard ; a smaller number,
with some ladies, were on her deck. At half-past twelve, all being ready,
the commodore stood at the heel of the bowsprit with a bottle of choice
Madeira, from the cellar of the Hon. Thomas Russell; at a given signal,
the ship slid along the ways and glided into and rested gracefully upon
the water, amid a chorus of cheers. As she did so, the commodore broke
the bottle over her bow, according to time-honored usage, and baptized her
as the good ship "Constitution." She cost, when ready for sea, $302,718.84.
She first moved under canvas July 20, 1798, and proceeded to sea on her
first cruise, under the command of Commodore Samuel Nicholson, August
13 of the same year.2
The frigate "Boston" (the second of that name), of seven hundred
tons, was the next ship of war built in Hart's yard. Her rate was to have
been a thirty-six, but she only mounted twenty-eight guns. She was de-
signed by Mr. Hart, and built under his superintendence.
The annoyance to which the commerce of our country had been sub-
jected by British and French ships of war, — the former claiming the right
of search for British subjects, and the latter capturing our vessels under the
pretence that they were carrying contraband goods, — aroused the indigna-
tion of the people. To aid in measures of defence, the ladies of Charleston,
S. C., built the "John Adams," and tendered her to the Government; the
inhabitants of Newburyport and its neighborhood built and presented the
" Merrimac ; " and the merchants of Salem built and presented the frigate
" Essex," the first ship of war of the United States to double both the Capes
of Good Hope and Horn. The merchants of Boston, not to be outdone in
patriotism, built the frigate " Boston." There were one hundred and four
subscribers, whose subscriptions varied from $500 to $10,000. The amount
subscribed was $136,500, and the cost of the frigate reached $I37,9OO.3
1 Among the shivering boys who witnessed contains the following notice of the first step in
the launch was the late George Ticknor ; who the project : —
told me that, though cautioned beforehand, he " Notice. — A subscription will be opened
was nearly swept from off the wharf on which this day for the raising of a fund to purchase or
he stood by the wave raised by the vessel as build one or more ships of war, to be loaned to
she made her plunge into the water. this Government for the service of the United
2 The history of the " Constitution " has States. Those who would wish to join in this
been several times written ; once by Cooper, in testimonial of public spirit are requested to
Graham's Magazine; again by Jesse E. Dow, meet in the chamber over Taylor's Insurance
who was Commodore Elliot's secretary when Office, at I o'clock precisely, to affix their signa-
she was his flag-ship in the Mediterranean. This tures and make the necessary arrangements."
last was printed in the Democratic Review. The next issue of the paper, June 30, 1798,
8 The Columbian Centinel of June 27, 1798, has the following announcement : —
THE NAVY, AND THE CHARLESTOWN NAVY YARD.
335
In April, 1799, President Adams appointed Captain George Little to be
her commander; and the work having been carried on with great rapidity,
the "Boston" was launched, in the presence of President Adams, May 2O.1
Captain Little gave notice July 9, in the newspapers, that " having re-
ceived sailing orders for the United States frigate ' Boston,' all officers and
men belonging to her are ordered to repair on board immediately." July
25, the frigate sailed on a cruise, and the Centinel declared her " one of
the handsomest-modelled ships in the world." Her subsequent captures of
" Le Berceau " and several French privateers are a part of our naval annals.
In 1812 the "Boston" was reported unworthy of repair; and in 1814, when
the British were advancing on Washington, she was burned, to prevent her
falling into the hands of the enemy.
The first legislation looking to the establishment of a government dock-
yard is found in a resolve reported from the Naval Committee of the House
of Representatives, Jan. 25, 1797, recommending an appropriation for that
purpose. The following spring a Navy Department was established ; and
April 25, 1800, we find the Hon. Benjamin Stoddard, Secretary of the Navy,
writing to the President: "At Boston, the old yard, besides being private
" THE NERVE. — In compliance with the ad-
vertisement in the last Centinel, a number of
citizens of this metropolis met at Taylor's In-
surance Office, for the purpose of opening a
patriotic and voluntary subscription in aid of
Government. Last evening the amount sub-
scribed amounted to $115,250; and as the sub-
scription still remains open, we have not the
least doubt that Boston will outdo every city in
the Union in Federal patriotism. We will not
omit mentioning that the Hon. William Phillips
added $10,000 to this free-will offering. God
bless him for it 1 "
[Among the subscribers are the following :
William Phillips, $10,000 ; David Sears, Stephen
Higginson, Eben Parsons, John Codman, Joseph
Coolidge & Son, Theodore Lyman, Boot and
Pratt, Thomas Dickinson, $3,000 each ; Samuel
Parkman and Samuel Eliot, $4,000 each; Ben-
jamin Joy, James and T. H. Perkins, Thomas
Walley, John Parker, Stephen Higginson, Jr.,
Abiel Smith, Thomas C. Amory, $1,500 each ;
St. Andrew's Lodge, $1,000; Benjamin and Na-
thaniel Goddard, and Josiah Quincy, $500. —
Ea]
Less than two months later, Aug. 22, 1798, the
papers say : " The keel of a thirty-six gun frigate
is now laying at Mr. Hart's navy yard."
1 The Columbian Centinel of Wednesday,
May 22, contains the following notice of the
launch : —
"Afore Wooden Walls. — On Monday last, at
noon, the frigate ' Boston,' of 32 guns, was
launched from the Navy (Hart's) Yard, in this
town, in the presence of THE PRESIDENT OF
THE UNITED STATES, His HONOR THE LIEU-
TENANT-GOVERNOR of Massachusetts, and an
immense concourse of spectators.
" Her entrance into the bottom of the elements,
the rights of which she is destined to ascertain
and defend, was announced by a Federal dis-
charge from Captain Gardner's artillery, by sa-
lutes from the shipping in the harbor, and by
the loud and reiterated huzzas of the citizens.
The launch was effected without the least acci-
dent or interruption, and complete harmony
operated every movement. A more excellent
piece of naval architecture cannot be produced
in the United States. The dispatch used in her
construction, the neatness of her workmanship,
with the superior quality and durability of her
materials, do honor to Captain Hart, the master-
builder, to Captain Little, her commander, the
superintending committee of subscribers, and
to the mechanics of the town. She is about 800
tons, and has the figure of an aboriginal war-
rior for her head. The President of the United
States was escorted to and from the Navy Yard
by a committee of subscribers and a procession
of civil and military officers, and was welcomed
and addressed by the acclamations of all ranks
of citizens, a full brass band of music in uni-
form, and discharges from Captain Gardner's
artillery."
" The rigging and equipment of the Boston
frigate," says the Centinel of May 29, " are pro-
gressing with patriotic celerity." June 9, the
same paper says : "The Boston frigate is almost
completed ; she bids fair to do honor to her
namesake." June 12 : "The Boston frigate yes-
terday hauled off into the stream. The enlist-
ment of her crew progresses rapidly."
336 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
property, and too confined to contain the timber of a 74-gun ship, is so
much surrounded by wooden houses as to be thought too dangerous a situ-
ation for building a valuable ship, especially a ship that might remain long
upon the stocks. At this place, or rather at Charlestown, there is a very
proper situation for a building-yard ; but the ground cannot be obtained
for less than eighteen thousand dollars." The secretary recommended the
purchase of land for a government dockyard at Boston, " notwithstand-
ing the high price which must be paid for the grounds." Mr. Hum-
phreys, the naval constructor, who was sent to the eastward to view the
situations about Boston and Portsmouth, extended his examination of har-
bors as far as Portland and Wiscasset, and reported that " he could find
nowhere within a convenient distance of Boston a situation so eligible
in all respects as Charlestown." Boston, he thought, " from the natural
strength of its situation, the great number of ship-carpenters in its vicinity,
and of its seamen, must always remain a building-place, and a place of
rendezvous for our navy of the first importance ; while the rise of tide,
eleven feet, would greatly lessen the expense of emptying a dock," etc.
He adds : " The outer harbor of President and Nantasket roads affords a
large and safe harbor for large fleets from the weather; and the inner
harbor, safe from winds, freshets, and enemy, could be securely fortified at
an easy expense." After an examination of Noddle's Island (East Boston),
— concerning which Admiral Montague is said to have remarked, "God
Almighty made Noddle's Island on purpose for a dockyard," — Mr. Hum-
phreys concludes his report by recommending the purchase of twenty-
three acres, at Charlestown, for $19,3 SO.1
Negotiations for the purchase of land at Charlestown were continued
through the agency of Dr. Aaron Putnam, but were not completed until
October.
On March 13, 1801, the secretary enclosed to the Messrs. Higginson,2
the navy agents in Boston, a letter from Captain Samuel Nicholson 3 of com-
plaint against them, which they were desired to explain, which is the first
1 It is curious to compare his estimate of the to that date $199,030.92 had been expended in
cost of the land, which is about $841 per acre, their purchase and improvement,
with its present value in the same neighborhood, 2 On April I, 1801, Samuel Brown, Esq.,
which is $2 and $3 per square foot. Ultimately succeeded Messrs. Higginson & Co., as navy
forty-three acres of land were bought at Charles- agent, and held the office for six years until he
town, for dockyard purposes, for ^39,214. There resigned, Aug. 15, 1807. It was a much more
was no direct authority from Congress to pur- important office in those early days of the Navy
chase this or any other dockyard. They were than subsequently ; and there were frequent con-
all bought under the appropriation of $1,000,000 flicts of authority between the navy agent and
for the building of six 74-gun ships, etc. The commandant which had to be settled by higher
executive was seriously censured by the opposi- authority.
tion party for having made these purchases with- 3 He was born in Maryland in 1743, and en-
out express authority; but the wisdom of the tered the naval service as a lieutenant during
measure was undoubted. On March i, 1801, the Revolutionary war, and was promoted a cap-
the sum of $500,000 was appropriated for ex- tain, Sept. 17, 1779, in the Continental Navy; on
penses upon the six 74-gun ships, and "for com- the reorganization, June 10, 1794, he was com-
plt-ting navy yards." This was the first appro- missioned a captain in the United States Navy,
priation recognizing their existence, though prior to rank next below Captain John Barry.
THE NAVY, AND THE CHARLESTOWN NAVY YARD.
337
THE ORIGINAL PURCHASE.
mention of his name in connection with the Yard at Charlestown, of which
he was the first superintendent (as the title went) and remained the com-
mandant until his death, Dec. 29, 1811. Meanwhile, and before the Yard
was ready for occupancy,
the Government had de-
cided to build a brig at
Boston, and her keel was
laid in Mr. Hart's yard.
The making of the con-
tracts was assigned to Captain
Edward Preble. She measured
two hundred and ninety-eight
tons, and was named the "Ar-
gus," carried sixteen guns, and
cost $37,428. After being one
of the most successful of our small cruisers, and noted for her achievements
in the war against Tripoli, and in that of 1812, she was captured in the
English Channel by H. B. M. brig "Pelican," on the I4th of August, 1813.
We learn from the log-book1 of the "Constitution," that "at 10 A. M.,
May 21, 1803, Commodore Preble came on board the ship, and as commo-
dore took charge of her, lying at her moorings off the Navy Yard where she
had been, being in ordinary, ten months and fourteen days." In making
ready for the cruise which was to take him to Tripoli, the ship was re-
coppered. The log-book on the 26th of June records : " The carpenters
gave nine cheers, which were answered by the seamen and calkers, because
they had in fourteen days completed coppering the ship with copper made
in the States." 2
In August the " Constitution " sailed for the Mediterranean, where she
earned for herself the well known sobriquet of " Old Ironsides."
In 1807 Samuel Brown resigned the position of Navy Agent, which was
esteemed at that time more important than the office of Superintendent or
Commandant of the Navy Yard, and Francis Johonnot, Esq., was appointed
to succeed him; and on July 23, 1808, the secretary directs the latter "not
to allow or pay for any repairs to the house occupied by the commandant,
other than those previously authorized by the department." This is the first
mention made of the commandant's house in the official records, which
substantially as it now stands had been one of the earliest improvements
of the yard.3
1 A copy of which is preserved in the Library
and Institute at the Navy Yard.
2 The copper was in fact made by Paul Revere,
as a correspondence on file in the Navy Depart-
ment shows. In the recent celebration of the
two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settle-
ment of Boston, the very blocks used to heave
out the " Constitution " on this occasion were
carried in the procession.
VOL. III. — 43.
3 [A view of this house from the yard, taken
about 1826 and showing the hills behind and the
Mystic, is given in Drake's Landmarks of Mid-
dlesex, p. 27, in which book chapter ii. is given
to " An Hour in the Government Dock Yard."
— ED.) This engraving is from a painting by
Mrs. Armstrong, wife of the late Commodore
Armstrong, which is now in the Naval Library
and Institute.
338 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
The year 1811 closed with the death of Commodore Samuel Nicholson,1
the first commandant of the station, who died on the 29th of December, and
was buried from the commandant's house, Jan. 2, 1812, with the accus-
tomed honors, in the presence of the officers of the Army and Navy sta-
tioned or living in the vicinity, the Massachusetts Society of the Cincin-
nati, of which he was a member, the officers and members of King Solomon's
Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons, and of the several lodges in Boston in
full regalia. At the time of his death he was sixty-nine years of age ; he was
buried under Christ Church in Boston. During his administration the ap-
propriations had been scanty, and only such improvements undertaken as
were essential. The shot and timber stored in Boston had been removed
to the Yard. The commandant's house, a brick store-house,2 marine bar-
racks, a hospital and powder magazine, the latter occupied jointly by the
war and navy department, and a wharf with a few temporary sheds were all
the improvements that had been accomplished. In fact the annual expendi-
tures for improvements for all the yards which had been purchased from
1802 to 1811 only averaged about $40,000.
No one seems to have been ordered to fill the vacancy in the office of
commandant until March, 1812, when Commodore William Bainbridge was
ordered here. He had been in Russia, engaged in mercantile speculations ;
but, hearing rumors of a probable war with Great Britain, hastened home,
and arriving in Boston in February proceeded at once to Washington,
where he reported himself for service, and was in a few weeks ordered to
the command of the Boston Navy Yard. At that time the Yard possessed
hardly a convenience for building or repairing vessels, or laying them up
in ordinary. This was a state of things which the active mind of Bainbridge
used every means in his power to remedy. He proceeded at once to ex-
amine and survey the harbor and its channels, and made frequent commu-
nications to the Government, in which he detailed the security which our
commerce would receive from an extensive establishment at Charlestown.
Among his reasons for such an establishment, he states that the distance
of the Yard from the sea precluded the possibility of surprise, and the chan-
nel commanded by Forts Independence and Warren rendered it impossible
for any armament then known to advance within gunshot of the Yard without
being demolished ; also that the harbor was never closed, and being seldom
obstructed by ice could be safely navigated at all times, and could not be
effectually blockaded. This last opinion of the commodore was abundantly
proved during the war of 1812-14, as throughout it national and merchant
vessels proceeded to sea whenever convenient to them, without incurring
any very great risk. The President was opposed at first to the commodore's
views, but such was Bainbridge's zeal and perseverance that the President at
last reluctantly authorized a limited appropriation for the Yard. Previous to
1 Two brothers, fames and John, were clistin- mainly occupied by the Museum and Library of
guished commanders in the Continental Navy. the Naval Library and Institute, organized in
2 This building is still standing at the en- 1843 [and largely encouraged by the writer of
trance of the Yard ; and the second story is this chapter. — Eu.]
THE NAVY, AND THE CHARLESTOWN NAVY YARD.
339
the commodore's appointment on Jan. 23, 1812, the Navy Agent, Johonnot,
had been removed because of "personal afflictions which rendered him inca-
COMMODORE HULL.1
pable of performing his active duties," and Amos Binney was commissioned
to the office, which he continued to fill for fourteen years, or until i826.2
When war was declared with Great Britain, Commodore Murray was
1 [This cut follows a portrait painted in 1813
or 1814, by Stuart, belonging to the family,
and now in the Boston Art Museum. Hull
dated his despatch announcing his victory over
the " Guerriere," " Off Boston Light ; " and as his
ship came up the harbor she was greeted with
acclamations from a flotilla of gaily decorated
vessels. An artillery company gave him a na-
tional salute as he landed, and a procession
conducted him to his lodgings; and at a public-
banquet, when nearly six hundred sat down, a
stirring ode was sung, which had been written by
Lucius Manlius Sargent. — ED.)
2 On April 28, 1812, Paul Hamilton, Secre-
tary of the Navy, addressed Commodore Bain-
bridge for the first time as "Commandant," — a
title ever since retained for the commanding
officer of our Navy Yards, whatever his naval
rank and title. [See General Palfrey's chapter
in the present volume. — ED.]
340
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
at the head of the Navy, but too old and infirm for active service. Com-
modore John Rodgers stood next on the list. James Barren came third, but
he was abroad ; and Bainbridge was the fourth. This entitled the last to
a command afloat, which he hastened to claim. The three best frigates
had gone to sea in quest of the enemy, but he was at once ordered to the
"Constellation," 38, fitting at Norfolk, Virginia ; and on the I5th of July
Captain C. R. Perry was temporarily appointed superintendent of the Yard,
until Commodore Bainbridge should return to the station, or some other
officer be appointed. Two days later, Lieutenant Stephen Cassin opened
a rendezvous in Boston to recruit able seamen for the " Constellation ; " and
on the 28th Captain Perry was relieved by Captain Gordon. On the 9th
of August, only twenty-one days after his detachment, Bainbridge was
ordered " to proceed to Boston and resume command of the Navy Yard
and the gunboats at that place, and at Kennebunk, Saco, and Portland, until
the ' Constellation ' is prepared for service."
On the 28th of July the frigate " Constitution," Captain Isaac Hull,
arrived at Boston after her escape1 from the British squadron under Commo-
1 [This famous escape, by which Hull gained
so much credit, and which he shared with Lieu-
tenant Morris, is minutely described in Captain
George Coggeshall's American Privateers, p. 10 ;
and on p. 25 will be found an account of the
" Constitution's " action with the " Guerriere."
It is of course enlarged upon by the usual au-
thorities,— C coper's Naval History, on the Amer-
ican side, and James's Naval History of Great
Britain, on the enemy's side. The latter's repu-
tation for candor, however, is not good. In Col-
Intrn's United Service Magazine, November and
December, 1880, there are articles by Captain
Bedford Pirn, R. N., and Sir E. J. Reed, K. C. B.,
on "The Naval War of 1812 with the United
States." Of the privateer and letter of marque
service of the war, Coggeshall, who himself
commanded two such craft, gives the fullest ac-
count, published (1856) indeed over forty years
after the war had closed, and he claims to give
the names of all or nearly all such vessels. The
book is not very readable, being mostly such an
enumeration. He chronicles two hundred and
fifty vessels sent out to capture British mer-
chantmen, and to have a brush as they could with
the British cruisers. Of this number, Baltimore
sent out fifty-eight ; New York, fifty-five ; Salem,
forty; and Boston standing fourth on the list,
thirty-one, whose names, as Coggeshall gives
them, are: "Abaellino," "Argus," "Avon,"
" Blakely," "Brutus," "Catharine," "Champ-
lain," "Charles Morris," "Charles Stewart,"
" Curlew," " Dromo," " Fame," " George Little,"
"Gossamer," "Hunter," " Hyder AH," "Ida,"
"Ino," "Jacob Jones," "Joel Barlow," "Leo,"
" Macdonough," " Macedonian," " Rambler,"
" Ranger," " Rapid," " Reindeer," " Sine qua-
non," "Sphinx," "Volant," "Wily Reynard"
A condensed account of this service is given in
Lossing's Field Book of the War of 1812, but
Boston hardly appears in it. — En.] Oct. 13,
1812, — the Privateer Schooner " Fame," which
had seen service as a privateer during the Revo-
lutionary War, returned from a cruise of fifteen
days, having captured two schooners. The " Hy-
der Ali," of Boston, Captain Thormlike, was
captured in the East Indies by the British Fri-
gate " Owen Glendower," after having taken nine
prizes, all of which, however, were recaptured.
One of the most famous privateers of the war,
the " True Blooded Yankee," was owned by Mr.
Henry, a brother of Commodore Edward Preble,
and was commissioned from Boston under the
American flag, though fitted out and sailing from
French ports, her owner being temporarily a res-
ident of France. She was commanded first by
Captain Hailey, and subsequently by Thomas
Oxnard, a nephew of her owner. She cruised a
greater part of the war in the British and Irish
channels, making many rich prizes which were
generally sent into French ports, though a few
were sent to the United States. One ship sent
into Brest, was said to be worth $500,000 ; one
laden with dry goods and Irish linens was ordered
to the United States, and the ship " Industry "
was sent to Bergen, in Norway, and there sold.
When the "True Blooded Yankee" arrived
in France from one of her cruises, she was laden
with the following spoils: 18 bales cf Turkey
carpets, 43 bales of raw silk weighing 12,000
pounds, 20 boxes of gums, 46 packs of the best
skins, 24 packs of beaver skins, 160 dozen of
swans' skins, 190 hides, copper, etc. In 1813,
during a cruise of thirty-seven days, she captured
THE NAVY, AND THE CHARLESTOWN NAVY YARD. 341
dore Broke, and sailing again on the 2d of August she returned on the 3Oth,
having in her cruise of less than a month captured four brigs, mounting
thirty guns, and H. B. M. frigate " Guerriere," of forty-nine guns.
On the 1st of September a rendezvous was opened to ship a crew for the
frigate " Chesapeake," Captain Evans, — which ship sailed from Boston on
the 1 3th of December. The frigates "United States" and "President"
also sailed on the 8th of October, the latter returning to Boston on the 3ist
of December.
From a detailed report made by Commodore Bainbridge, it appears
that the expenditures for accommodations, repairs of buildings, etc., for
the years 1811—1812 only amounted to $5,752.43; but during the first
year of the war nearly $250,000 were expended principally for the repairs
of vessels.1
About this time Captain Isaac Hull, having obtained his meed of glory
and desiring to attend to his private affairs, was relieved of the command
of the " Constitution ; " and Captain William Bainbridge at his own request
was transferred to the command of that frigate.2 A small squadron, con-
sisting of the "Constitution," "Essex," and "Hornet," was placed under the
command of Bainbridge, and Sept. 15, 1812, he hoisted his broad pennant
as Commodore on board the "Constitution" at Boston, and sailed thence on
the 26th of October, in company with the "Hornet."3 The "Constitution"
on this cruise captured H. B. M. frigate "Java," and returned to Boston on the
27th of February, after an absence of only four months. Bainbridge landed
the next morning on the end of Long Wharf, and amidst the roaring of can-
non was received by the officers and citizens of distinction, and escorted up
twenty-seven vessels and made two hundred and lowing rates: master carpenter from $350
seventy prisoners; and also took possession of to $4.00 a day; sawyers at $1.50 a day; join-
an island on the coast of Ireland, and held it six ers at $1.25 a day ; laborers at $1.00 a day. The
days. She also took a town in Scotland, and working hours were from sunrise to sunset,
burned seven vessels in the harbor. In 1814 she '2 The secretary, September 8, wrote to Bain-
cruised in the British Channel in company with bridge : " Captain Hull having asked to be re-
the privateer "Bunker Hill," of fourteen guns lieved of the command of the ' Constitution,' you
and one hundred and forty men, with orders to will immediately take command of that frigate
divest her prizes of their valuable articles and and prepare her for service. Until your re-
then to sink them and destroy them, but not to turn to the yard, Captain Hull will relieve you in
send them into port. Such was the terror she the command. Should this command be incon-
inspired, that it is said a reward was offered for venient to Captain Hull, you will appoint Mr.
her capture and that of her captain dead or alive. Morris [Lieutenant, afterwards Commodore
Captain Thomas Oxnard settled in France after Charles Morris, the greatest man our navy has
the war, having married a French lady, and died yet produced] to that station." Mr. Morris had
at Marseilles, June 14,1840; on his death-bed he been the first lieutenant of Hull on the recent
requested that his body should be shrouded in cruise of the "Constitution." [An autobiogra-
the American Flag. phy of Morris, with a photograph of a portrait of
1 The following vessels of war were repaired him by Ary Scheffer, is given in No. 12 of the
at the Yard at the following costs: "John U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings. — ED.] It has
Adams," $33,579.33; "Chesapeake," $105,991.- also been reprinted in a separate pamphlet. Mr.
07 ; " Constitution," $46,638.46 ; " President," Corcoran is now having an extensive biography
$14,928.04 ; " United States," $21,589.85 ; " Con- of the Commodore, his father-in-law, prepared.
gress," $5,681.51 ; "Hornet," $5,430.73; " Nau- 3 The "Essex" sailed from the Delaware to
tilus," $400.84; "Argus," $9,052.94; Four gun- join him at sea, but never did ; her subsequent
boats, etc., $1,932. 31, — total, $24 5,225.13. These adventurous career and honorable capture in the
repairs were done at daily wages, at the fol- Pacif.c it is unnecessary to repeat here.
342
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
State Street by the New England Guards to the Exchange Coffee-house,
greeted all along the route with loud huzzas. The streets through which he
passed and the merchant ships in the harbor were decorated with flags,
and a public dinner was given to him on the 2d of March by the citizens.
THE NAVY, AND THE CHARLESTOWN NAVY YARD. 343
Before Commodore Bainbridge's return Congress had authorized the
building of three line-of-battle ships. One of these was to be laid down
at the Boston Yard, and he was ordered to superintend its construction.
Having, like his compeer Hull, obtained his victory, Bainbridge resigned
the command of the "Constitution," March, 1813, and resumed charge
of the Navy Yard and the Eastern naval station, which included at that time
all the floating force in Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Maine. On the
25th of February preceding, the secretary had informed Captain Hull that
his command extended to every gunboat eastward of Boston, and to all the
floating force attached to Portsmouth and Portland, but that the Navy Yard
at Portsmouth was in charge of the Navy Agent there.
Early in 1813 preparation was made at the Yard, under a contract with
the Harts, father and son, to build a seventy-four. Her frame had been
moulded in 1798-1800, in conformity with a draft then made. Commo-
dore Bainbridge had suggested improvements in her form and dimensions
which were found under the circumstances impracticable. The result was as
he predicted ; she was found when launched to carry her lower deck ports
too low, and was finally razeed into one of the finest sailing frigates ever
produced in our own or any other service. Her keel was laid Aug. 18,
1813, and work was pushed on her so that she was ready for launching
the following June.
The Columbian Centinel of the i8th of June, 1814, says: —
" The ' Independence ' of seventy-four guns will be launched this day from the
Navy Yard in Charlestown. Those who wish to see the launch will do well to be
in the vicinity by half-past eleven o'clock to avoid disappointment. We have no doubt
of the strength of Charlestown bridge ; but prudence requires that the numbers admit-
ted thereon should be limited if possible. It is recommended that the eastern side be
appropriated to the ladies. We think the view from Copp's Hill will be the best."
The launch, however, was not successful on that day, for the Centinel
announces that owing to the accidental removal of the tallow from a part of
the ways the ship was only advanced about seventy-six feet. An attempt to
launch her the following day by mechanical power also failed ; and her ways
had to be relaid. At last, on the 22d, at three o'clock P.M., she moved grandly
off, and was welcomed by a Federal salute from the frigate " Constitution "
and the acclamations of many thousands of spectators. The salute was re-
turned by the Navy- Yard battery, and subsequently the workmen employed
in her construction " were sumptuously entertained in the rigging-loft, and
spent the day in hilarity." An officer of the " Constitution," whose name is
not given, had the honor of christening this the first line-of-battle ship added
to our navy.1
1 The good old ship still exists, though no launched from the Boston Yard, the sloop-of-
more fit for the sea; and after a variety of active war " Frolic " having been launched on Sept. u
service has long been the receiving-ship at the preceding. The " Frolic " sailed from Boston
Mare Island Navy Yard, California. The "In- Feb. 18, 1814, commanded by Master Comman-
dependence " was not the first vessel of war dant Joseph Bainbridge (a brother of the com-
344 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
In a letter to the secretary, dated Aug. 21, 1813, Commodore Bainbridgc
proposed to construct houses over the ships then building at Charlestown
and Portsmouth. The men thus protected he thought would work with
more celerity, neatness, and efficiency, and the vessels might remain on the
stocks until required without suffering material deterioration, — an opinion
which has been supported by the results.1 The advantages were made so
apparent to the secretary, that on the 26th he authorized the erection of
ship-houses (as they are called) not only at Portsmouth and Boston,
but at all the navy yards in the United States. Sir Robert Seppings,
the distinguished British naval architect, learned from this experiment
the great advantage of such structures, and at his suggestion the Board of
Admiralty directed similar buildings to be erected in the principal dock-
yards of the United Kingdom.
The "Chesapeake" having returned to Boston April 9, 1813, Captain
Evans was soon after relieved by Captain James Lawrence, who, having
recruited her crew and refitted her, sailed from President Roads on June
I, and was captured the same day in sight of the port by H. B. M. ship
" Shannon," which she had gone out to encounter.2
When the " Constitution " had returned from the cruise in which she
captured the " Java," Captain Charles Stewart relieved Bainbridge, who
then resumed command of the Yard. The ship having been thoroughly
repaired, the Department on September 19 wrote to hurry her departure;
she did not, however, get to sea until December 30, when she ran the
modore) ; and after making one or two prizes Lawrence's last letter written just before leav-
was herself captured by H. B. M. frigate "Or- ing port, and from the British Captain Broke's
pheus " and schooner " Shelbourne," April 20, challenge (which did not reach Boston by way
1814, after a chase of sixty hours. of Salem till after the "Chesapeake" had gone
1 The house from which the "Independence" out to sea) are given in Lossing's account of
was launched — the first of the kind ever erected the action in his Field-book of the War of 1812,
— is marked No. i on the plan of 1823. The p. 702. A memoir of Lawrence was written at
"Vermont" (74) was built in it, and launched the time by Washington Irving in the Analectic
from under it in 1848,' after which it was pulled Magazine, then edited by him, and it is now in-
down, and a portion of its material used in the eluded in his Spanish Papers, etc., ii. 37 ; Irving
construction of additions to the officers' houses in had the advantage of a conference with an officer
the northeastern extremity of the yard. There is of the "Chesapeake" who survived the fight,
now a smaller house erected over the same ways See also Harper's Monthly, xxiv. A portrait of
from which in 1874 the iron torpedo-boat " In- Captain Lawrence in uniform, by Stuart, is
trepid," the first vessel of the kind added to our owned by his granddaughter, Mrs. William Red-
navy, was launched, mond, Newport, R.I. Mason's Stuart, p. 212.
2 The inhabitants of Boston watched the bat- — ED.] By the loss of the "Chesapeake " our
tie with intense and anxious interest from the naval signals fell into the hands of the enemy,
house-tops and adjoining eminences ; they could which rendered a new code necessary ; and
see the smoke and hear the distant cannonade. Commodores Bainbridge, Decatur, and Hull
Some of the citizens who went outside the har- were appointed to perform that duty. His as-
bor hurried back sadly when they saw the result, sociates being otherwise occupied on important
It was the last, as it was the only, sound of hos- duties, Commodore Bainbridge prepared and
tile cannon heard in Boston for the last hundred transmitted the new code, which was approved
years. This is not the place, nor is there room, and adopted by the Department. He also,
to describe the action in full, which the writer with Commodore Hull, about the same time
has narrated elsewhere. [See The United Ser- prepared rules and regulations for 'the govern-
vice, October, 1879, f°r " The Chesapeake and ment of officers in repairing and equipping the
Shannon," by G. H. Preble. Fac-similes from vessels of the navy.
THE NAVY, AND THE CHARLESTOWN NAVY YARD. 345
blockade of seven of the enemy's ships. After a short cruise, in which
she captured the schooner " Pictou " of fourteen guns and three merchant
vessels, she was finally chased into Marblehead.1
Rumors and reports of large ships of war having been seen off the coast
kept the town in a continual state of ferment. Captain Sullivan, of the
New England Guards, presented a statement of the defenceless condition of
the harbor to the selectmen, which caused them to announce that a com-
mittee of the board would attend every day at II o'clock A.M. at Faneuil
Hall to receive communications and suggestions. The Adjutant-General of
the Commonwealth also gave notice that in case of an attack during the
day two guns would be fired rapidly, and a red flag hoisted in the Navy
Yard ; and if at night, three guns would be fired, two lanterns hoisted at the
Navy Yard, and the church bells tolled for half an hour.2 The Navy Yard
was so defenceless that little resistance could have been offered, and fears
were expressed for the " Independence," then ready to be launched ; and
in June, when the enemy appeared in force off the harbor, Commodore
Bainbridge entered into correspondence with General John Brooks, the
Adjutant-General of Massachusetts, suggesting measures for its defence.
In consequence of which the following General Order was issued : —
" HEADQUARTERS, Boston, June 13, 1814.
" Commodore Bainbridge having solicited the services of the Company of New-
England Guards, commanded by Captain George Sullivan, for the defence of the Navy
Yard in Charlestown, and that corps having voluntarily expressed their ready dispo-
sition to meet the wishes of the Commodore, the Commander-in-Chief consents to the
arrangement, and orders Captain Sullivan to march without delay to that post, where
he will continue his command until further orders ; or otherwise until the object for
which the services were requested is accomplished.
" By his Excellency's command,
"J. BROOKS, Adjutant- General."
In response to this order, on the afternoon of the I3th the Guards
assembled to the number of sixty-one, and with their six-pounders and bag-
gage encamped in the evening on the eminence above the magazine. Two
eighteen-pounders and the company's six-pounders were planted to com-
1 On April 3, when the news came from the that in their haste they had marched on •without
commandant of the Navy Yard that the " Con- a supply of ammunition. One of the company
stitution" was threatened by three frigates of was Abbott Lawrence, afterward our minister
the enemy, the New-England Guards of Boston to England ; and when the company was hastily
volunteered to march to her defence. Leaving summoned, Lawrence, unwilling to be left be-
their armory at 7 o'clock, P.M., they halted in hind, started on the march in pump-soled shoes,
front of the commandant's house, where they which soon became so uncomfortable that when
were informed by Commodore Bainbridge that the company was halted on Chelsea Bridge he
he would proceed at I o'clock A. M. with heavy bartered them with a countryman for a thick
artillery, and requested them to go on in ad- pair of brogans, giving him five dollars additional
vance ; they were, however, overtaken by his in exchange.
verbal order and directed to return, when, it hav- 2 [A statement of the protective measures
ing been ascertained that the " Constitution " taken at this time is given in General Palfrey's
was safe in Salem harbor, the company was dis- chapter on " Boston Soldiery in War and Peace "
missed, — not, however, before it was discovered in the present volume. — ED.]
VOL. III. — 44.
346
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
mand Chelsea Bridge, over which it was apprehended an attack might be
made, and the camp of sixteen tents was fronted in the same direction.
The next day was occupied in raising breastworks; sham-fights and drills
followed for three days. A portion of each day was employed by them in
raising an embankment, which was completed on Sunday, and named " The
Guard's Fort." The Guards having assisted at the subsequent attempts to
launch the seventy-four, they were dismissed by the Commodore the next
day with his thanks for their services.1
No sooner was the " Independence " in the water, than Commodore Bain-
bridge hoisted his broad pennant on her, and guns were placed on board.
She was then anchored in connection with the " Constitution " so as to rake
the harbor and enfilade any squadron of boats which might attempt to carry
the Navy Yard. Twenty-four cannon were mounted on three small batteries
on the eastern embankment of the Navy Yard, and a line of palisades was
stretched across the wharf. Some heavy cannon which commanded the
entrance of the Yard were placed in the rear of them ; guns were also placed
so as to rake the entrance to the Mystic River.2
1 [The New England Guards had been organ-
ized September, 1812, with Samuel Swett for
Captain. Proceedings at the Fiftieth Anniversary
of the New England Guards, Oct. 15, 1862. — ED.]
2 A committee from the governor and coun-
cil waited upon the commodore and requested
him to remove the " Independence " and " Con-
stitution " below the fort ; but he declined doing
so, as the fort could not co-operate with them, and
because in that position they would be subject to
the same fire as the fleet of the enemy. The com-
mittee argued that the public ships being the
exclusive object of attack, if they remained where
he had placed them, would draw the fire of the
enemy on the towns of Boston and Charlestown,
and involve them in the ruin of the national
property. Bainbridge replied with some warmth
that Government had confided to him an impor-
tant command, and no temporizing expedients
would induce him to alter the system of defence
which he had planned. He was asked, "Should
the people of Boston decline all measures of de-
fence in consequence of his refusing to move
the ships to the places proposed, whether that
would not induce him to yield?" He firmly
replied, " No, nor any other consideration what-
ever. If," he added, " the people of Boston should
refuse to defend their houses and property, they
would have themselves alone to blame." The
public property did not belong to any particular
administration, but to the nation, and he re-
gretted to observe that a very small proportion
of the citizens should, in manifesting a hostility
to the one, give evidence of a want of proper
zeal in their duty to the other ; he as an Amer-
ican would do all that was incumbent upon
him as an officer of the United States. Bain-
bridge further informed the committee that he
would defend his command to the last extremity,
let the consequences be what they might. If
the citizens chose to separate their interests from
those of the nation, the consequences must fall
where they were deserved ; duty and honor dic-
tated the course which he should pursue. In-
dividual influence in vain was brought to bear
upon him to induce him to change his plan of
defence, and he continued to devote all his en-
ergies to the organization and proper disposition
of his force.
It was proposed about this time to obstruct
the entrances of the harbor by sinking ships,
but this was strenuously objected to by Com-
modore Bainbridge; and his course in this was
approved by the Secretary of the Navy, who,
in a long letter dated July 16, 1814, says: "It
is difficult to imagine a case so absurd as the
right of a State, much less a corporate body,
to block up a harbor of the United States in
which their naval arsenals are established and
their fleets prepared to seek the enemy." He
adds in conclusion : " What you have proposed
to the town of Boston as a substitute for the
ruinous measure contemplated by its marine
committee appears to me to be well adapted to
the occasion, and fully adequate to the end.
You will therefore persevere in temperate ex-
postulation, and the President trusts the commit-
tee will ultimately see the superior advantages
of your plan of defence, and the manifest objec-
tions to the course they propose to pursue." If
they still persisted, the commodore was ordered
to report the nature and extent of the projected
obstructions, and the probable time of their
being placed.
THE NAVY, AND THE CHARLESTOWN NAVY YARD. 347
The danger evidently increasing towards autumn, Major-General Dear-
born received instructions from the President for the defence of the north-
eastern military district ; and there ensued a conflict of authority between
him and the State authorities as to his right to call out and command the
militia as garrisons of the forts on the seaboard. The variance of opinion
between the State and national executives tended greatly to increase the
general alarm. Meetings were called all along the seaboard to recommend
strong measures for the common defence. The citizens of Boston were
called upon to assemble ; and impressed by the eloquence of their chairman,
the Hon. Harrison Gray Otis, they adopted without hesitation all the meas-
ures which had been suggested to him in a letter from Commodore Bain-
bridge, under date Sept. 3, 1811. The militia was called out, redoubts and
breastworks were erected, and hulks were moored in. the channel, prepared
to be sunk. The British commanding officer, on learning of these prepara-
tions, and that the spirit of the people was aroused, wisely withdrew from
his contemplated attack, and turned his course to the South.
Relieved from these apprehensions of attack, the commodore urged on the
completion of the " Independence ; " and on October 22 he wrote to the sec-
retary unofficially: "I feel extremely anxious to get to sea this winter to
establish the fact that we are able successfully to fight Great Britain in other
classes of vessels than frigates and sloops of war. ... It will take, compar-
atively speaking, but a small sum to get the ' Independence ' to sea ; and
if she is sent, I pledge my life you will be gratified with the cruise." Un-
fortunately the guns of the " Independence " were at the Washington Navy
Yard, and could not be transported by land. in the winter, and the danger of
their capture forbade a conveyance by sea ; and in consequence she did not
get to sea until after the end of the war.1 -
Peace having been declared, there was a cessation of activity in all our
navy yards, which was felt in Boston as elsewhere, and improvements in
progress or projected came to a standstill.
The declaration of war with Algiers on March 2, 1815, created a tempo-
rary excitement ; and Commodore Bainbridge, having been appointed to com-
mand our Mediterranean squadron, was relieved by Commodore Isaac Hull
as commandant of the station. Hoisting his broad pennant on the " In-
dependence," Bainbridge sailed from Boston July 3, 1815, accompanied by
the " Erie," " Chippewa," and " Lynx." A squadron which had sailed
from New York under Commodore Decatur was united to his command ;
so that after his arrival in the Mediterranean his force consisted of eigh-
teen or twenty sail, being the largest squadron which had ever been fit-
ted out by the United States.
1 We learn from an official source that dur- States," twice ; " Chesapeake," three times ;
ing the war, notwithstanding the port was block- "Congress," four times. Sloops of war : " Hor-
aded for a greater part of the time, the following net," twice ; " Frolic," once ; " John Adams,"
United States vessels of war passed in and out once. Brigs of war : "Argus," twice; " Nau-
of Boston, — namely, Frigates: "Constitution," tilus," four times; "Rattlesnake" twice; "Si-
seven times ; " President," four times ; " United ren," twice.
348
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Our difficulty with Algiers having been satisfactorily and honorably ad-
justed, the squadron under Bainbridge — consisting of two frigates, seven
brigs, and three schooners — sailed from Gibraltar October 6, and arrived
at Newport, Rhode Island, Nov. 15, 1815. After distributing his force
between Boston and New York where the vessels were to be laid up, Bain-
bridge sailed in the " Independence " for Boston, where he arrived Dec. 7,
1815, having been absent five months. The " Independence " was retained
in commission as a guard-ship, flying Bainbridge's pennant as Port Captain,
which is the first instance of that office being created in our navy. He
continued in command of her and of the Boston station for several years,
Commodore Hull commanding at the Navy Yard. During this period the
" Independence " was fully officered and two-thirds manned, and was kept
in a perfect state of discipline and efficiency.
Three days after his arrival Bainbridge addressed a letter1 to Chaplain
Cheever Felch, establishing the first naval school for officers ever organized
in our navy, and which may therefore be said to be the parent of our pres-
ent naval academy at Annapolis.
In 1816 an official journal of the proceedings at the Yard — a sort of
shore log-book — was commenced, which has been continued down to the
present time, affording a good index of all the principal events.2
1 UNITED STATES SHIP " INDEPENDENCE,"
Boston Harbor, Dec. 10, 1815.
SIR, — I have to direct that you open a naval
school within the Navy Yard at Charlestown, in
such apartments as Captain Hull may assign to
you, for the purpose of instructing the officers
of the squadron in those branches of mathemat-
ics which appertain to their profession. The
school must be opened every day in the week,
Sunday excepted. The hours of study must be
from nine A.M. to one P.M. You will daily re-
port to me the officers who attend. Once a
fortnight you will make to me a general report
of the respective branches of study in which
each officer is engaged, accompanied with can-
did remarks on their conduct, attention, and
progress.
I am, etc.,
WILLIAM BAINBRIDGE.
The Rev. Mr. FELCH.
2 The first volumes are in the elegant hand-
writing of sailing-master Charles F. Waldo, and
open with the following " List of officers attached
to the Navy Yard, Charlestown, Mass., Jan. i,
1816 : Isaac Hull, commandant ; Richard M.
Winters, lieutenant ; Samuel R. Trevett, Jr. and
John A. Kearney, surgeons ; Lewis Deblois,
purser; Joseph Cross, Thomas B.Tilden, and Ed-
mund M. Russell, midshipmen; Abram Walton,
boatswain; Matthew Rogers, gunner; Charles
F. Waldo and Robert Knox, sailing-masters ;
Benjamin H. Fosdick, commandant's clerk ;
Thomas J. H. Gushing, assistant-surgeon; Ste-
phen G. Clarke, master's mate ; John Johnson,
gunner ; William , quartermaster ; Fran-
cis Wyman, purser's steward ; B. Evans, carpen-
ter,— total, nineteen officers. Petty officers:
one armorer's mate ; one sailing-master's mate ;
one carpenter's mate ; four men with gunner (for
'Constitution'); three boys (officers'); two at-
tendants at commandant's ; two cooks (hulk and
gunboat) ; one mate for ditto ; one gunner's yeo-
man (Dick Dunn); and nine men to work in
the yard, — forty-four in Mo."
Major Caleb Gibbs was at this time, as he had
been for many years, the naval storekeeper. The
Secretary of the Navy, addressing Commodore
Hull concerning him, Jan. 4, i8i6,says : "Major
Gibbs, the naval store-keeper, is an old Revolu-
tionary officer of merit, and has held the station
since the commencement of our naval opera-
tions. I request your attention and indulgence
toward him as far as may be consistent with
public duty; and you will be pleased to accom-
modate him at the Navy Yard with a room for
his office, and in every other way in which you
can render his situation agreeable to him. A re-
gard for his former services and respect for his
personal merit induce me to recommend Major
Gibbs to your benevolent disposition."
Major Gibbs was continued in office until
Dec. i, 1818, when George Bates was appointed
the storekeeper. He in turn was relieved after
twenty-two years of service by Seth J. Thomas,
Jan. i, 1840. Major Gibbs was the first com-
mander of Washington's Body (or "Lite")
THE NAVY, AND THE CHARLESTOWN NAVY YARD. 349
In 1818 the Navy Commissioners surveyed the harbor, and reported it
capacious and deep enough to be entered by any man-of-war, and that
twenty-five and a half feet could be taken over the bar at low tide. They
were further of the opinion that Boston harbor possessed many advantages
resulting from its natural means of defence, — its ample space for anchorage
in the lower harbor and Nantasket Roads, its proximity to materials for
naval construction, " and in the dense population of the town and its vicin-
ity ; " nevertheless, " from the uncertainty of entrance into it, and that a
fair wind was requisite to enter President from Nantasket Roads, and that
occasionally it was obstructed by ice, and from the difficulty of getting to
sea in easterly weather, and its susceptibility of blockade, and the danger-
ous navigation of the bay in the winter," — the commissioners did not think
it advisable to establish a great national depot and rendezvous at Boston.
They, however, recommended retaining the establishment and connecting
it with a dry dock for occasional building and repair, and also that the
fortifications on George's, Long, Castle, Governor's, and Noddle:s islands
should be strengthened.
For some years to come there were no signal transactions to notice ; but
a few items taken from the records may serve to show the course of cur-
rent events.1
In October, 1819, Commodore Bainbridge was ordered to serve as pres-
ident of a board of captains to convene at New York, to examine midship-
men for promotion. This was an outgrowth of his naval school, and the
first examination of midshipmen ; the result of which proved so beneficial
that now examinations into the physical, moral, and professional qualifica-
tions of an officer are made prior to every promotion or increase of rank ;
and thus the worthy and intelligent are encouraged, and the indolent, igno-
rant, and profligate driven out of the service. Towards the close of the
year the Commodore was detached from the " Independence " and ordered
to the " Columbus," 74, then equipping at Washington, when eighteen of
the officers of the " Independence" addressed to him a letter of regret.
In 1820, May 16, Master Commandant William Branford Shubrick2 re-
Guard. His office was first in Batterymarch (afterward well known as Commodore William
Street, — the yard at the bottom of Milk Street Compton Bolton), and Lieutenant Francis B.
being leased for naval purposes. When Wash- White, of the Marine Corps, both officers of the
ington visited Boston in 1789, he appointed eight " Independence." It was fought on Noddle's
o'clock, A.M., as the hour when he would leave Island, not far from the present Border Street
for Salem. The cavalry company which was to in East Boston, between two elm trees. Lieu-
escort him, not understanding his punctuality, tenant White was instantly killed. Lieutenant
paraded in Tremont Street after his departure, Finch was born in England. His mother was said
and it was not until he had passed Charlestown to have been an actress of the name of Finch;
Bridge that it overtook him. Washington said his father, the Earl of Bolton. He entered the
to Gibbs, who commanded the troop when it navy as a midshipman in 1806; changed his name
overtook him : " I thought, Major Gibbs, you to William Compton Bolton in 1833 to inherit
had been too long in my family not to know some property, and died in Genoa while in com-
when it was eight o'clock." mand of the United States squadron in the Med-
1 A passing notice may be given to the duel iterranean, in 1849.
which took place Sept. 25, 1819, between Lieu- 2 [See Harper's Monthly, August, 1876. —
tenant William B. Finch, United States Navy ED ]
350
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
ported for duty as the executive officer of the Yard ; he was the first officer
so designated in orders. June 1 1, the men were all mustered at ten o'clock,
A.M., and with all the officers of the station attended divine service in the
sail-loft, the Rev. Cheever Felch officiating. This was the first service of the
kind held within the Navy Yard. On June 15 work was discontinued to
allow the men to witness the execution of three pirates in Boston.1
1 [See Mr. J. P. Quincy's chapter. — ED.]
THE NAVY, AND THE CHARLESTOWN NAVY YARD. 351
On August 23, 1823, at i P.M., Commodore Isaac Hull delivered over
the command of the Navy Yard, which he had held for eight years and
five months, to Commodore William Bainbridge, who had- been his prede-
cessor. A committee of the citizens of Charlestown received Bainbridge
at the draw of the bridge and escorted him to the town hall, where a colla-
tion was provided. The committee then attended him to the Navy Yard
gate, where he was received by Major Wainwright and a guard of marines,
who conducted him to Commodore Hull.
In September the commissioners completed the purchase from Dr.
Aaron Dexter of a site for a naval hospital in Chelsea, for which $18,000
was paid from the fund in the Treasury which had been deducted from the
pay of the officers, seamen, and marines of the navy.1
On March 12, 1824, there was a mutiny in the Massachusetts State
Prison, which the marines, under Major Wainwright, were called upon to
suppress. Three convicts had been sentenced to be publicly whipped in
the prison yard, and were in the solitary cells waiting punishment. An
officer of the prison entered one of the cells, when the prisoner sprang
upon him and locked him in, and then opened the doors of the other two
cells. The three prisoners thus released then ordered the officer to give
the signal at the guard-room door that all was right, while they stood ready
to rush through when the door was opened and secure the guard and arms.
The officer refusing to comply with their orders, they threatened to kill
him, and he was forced back into a cell and locked in. The alarm having
been given, the prisoners rushed from the workshops armed with clubs,
knives, hammers, chisels, and every variety of weapon attainable, and
formed a band whose strength, vileness, and reckless daring could hardly
be equalled. Men of all ages and characters, dressed -in the motley garb of
the institution, gathered together for the purpose of preventing the punish-
ment of their comrades. Finally a subordinate officer despatched a request
to Major Wainwright for assistance. On his arrival Major Wainwright was
requested to order his men to fire down upon the convicts through the little
1 In 1802, by order of the Secretary of the Mystic River. It furnishes accommodation for
Navy, five acres of land in the north-east corner all the sick or wounded officers, seamen, and
of the Navy Yard was assigned to the Treasury marines of the navy at Boston, Portsmouth, N.
Department for a Marine Hospital, on which a H., and New London, Conn. ; and for all the in-
hospital with all the necessary outbuildings was valids from our naval vessels on foreign stations
erected and enclosed with a picket-fence from which may come into the port of Boston. There
the Navy Yard. In 1825 this property was re- was originally one hundred and fifteen acres in
transferred to the Navy Department, upon the the tract ; there now remain about seventy-five,
payment to the Treasury Department of $12,875, tne remainder having been transferred to the
the estimated value of the buildings, and a Ma- ordnance department of the navy, and to the ma-
rine Hospital was erected in Chelsea. The hos- rines' hospital service. The hospital building is
pital building in the yard was pulled down the of granite, one hundred and forty-nine feet by
same year, and on the site was erected a block seventy-one, and was completed in 1836. A wing
of four dwelling-houses, which are still occupied was added in 1865. It is capable of accommo-
as officers' quarters. They were first occupied dating one hundred sick comfortably. The par-
August, 1826. ticular merit of this hospital is that it is the only
The United States Naval Hospital at Chel- Naval Hospital on the Atlantic coast which is
sea is beautifully situated on the left bank of the absolutely free from malarial poison.
352
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
windows, first with powder, and then with ball, until they surrendered. He
took a wiser as well as a bolder course. Relying upon the effect of( a firm
determination upon men so situated, he ordered the door thrown wide
open, and marched into the hall at the head of thirty men, and formed them
opposite the crowd of criminals grouped at the other end. He then ad-
dressed them, and said he would not quit that hall alive until every convict
had returned to his duty. The convicts replied that some of them were ready
to die, and only waited his attack, and swore they would fight to the end
unless the flogging was remitted. Major Wainwright now ordered his men
to load their muskets, and directed each man to hold up to view the bullet
which he was to drop into his gun. This only caused a growl of deter-
mined resistance on the part of the convicts. The guns being loaded, the
next order to the marines was to take aim. Still not a prisoner stirred,
except more firmly to grasp his weapon. Major Wainwright then took out
his watch, and turning to the convicts, while his men kept their pieces
^fc/%^icl
(,3Z£ If j
f;#2.6-2t /
THE NAVY, AND THE CHARLESTOWN NAVY YARD.
353
/'*?*)
AUTOGRAPHS OF THE COMMANDANTS.1
aimed at them, said : " You must leave this hall. I give you three minutes
to decide. If at the end of that time a man remains he shall be shot dead.
I speak no more." No more tragic situation than this can be conceived :
at one end of the hall a fearless band of desperate and powerful men
1 In addition to these commandants there
were at several times, though not continuously,
" port captains," who commanded all the naval
forces afloat. Thus Captain William Bainbridge
was port captain from 1815 to 1819, — making
his service in Boston harbor from 1812 to 1824
almost continuous. Captain John Downes, the
commandant from 1835 to 1842, and again from
1849 to l&52< was Port captain from 1842 to
1845, — the entire period of the command of his
successor as commandant. Rear Admiral Hi-
ram Paulding, a son of one of the captors of
Major Andre, was the port captain in 1869-70.
Since that date the office has been abolished.
The twenty-two commandants have had con-
siderable professional reputation. The first
commandant, whose command extended over
VOL. ill. — 45.
eleven years, died in office in 1811. He saw ser-
vice during the War of the Revolution, and was
the first commander of the frigate " Constitu-
tion." Hull and Bainbridge, who alternated in
the command for fourteen years, as well as Mor-
ris, who commanded for five years, made glori-
ous records in the war of 1812-14. Downes
also, whose several commands extended over
ten years, commanded the Essex " Junior " in
the famous Bay of Valparaiso fight. Elliott was
second in command at the battle of Lake Erie.
Gregory and J. B. Nicholson made honorable
records in the War of 1812. Stringham, whose
command extended over seven years, obtained
the thanks of Congress for his services at Hat-
teras Inlet during the Civil War. Commodore
Parker, Sr., was selected at one time to organ-
354 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
awaiting the assault; at the other, a small squad of well-disciplined marines
waiting with levelled muskets the order to fire; the commander counting
the tickings of his watch to give the signal. For two minutes not a person
or muscle was moved, not a sound heard, except the labored breathing of
the infuriated wretches. At the expiration of two minutes, during which
they had faced the ministers of death unfalteringly, two or three in the
rear went slowly out; a few more followed, dropping out quietly and delib-
erately, and before the last half minute had expired every man was struck
by the panic, and the hall was cleared.
On March 16, 1824, work was begun on the building ways for a sloop-of-
war. On the I3th of May her keel was laid, and at I P.M., October 15, the
sloop-of-war " Boston," of seven hundred tons burden, was launched.1
December 22, the Secretary of the Navy ordered the seventy-four which
was first begun Oct. 19, 1822, to be named the "Virginia,"2 and the seventy-
four number two the " Vermont," and the forty-four gun ship to be called
the " Cumberland.',! By another order, dated April 27, 1827, the names
of the seventy-fours were reversed, number one becoming the " Vermont,"
and number two the " Virginia." The " Vermont " as thus named was
launched in 1853, and is now a receiving hulk at the New York Yard.
The " Virginia," after remaining on the stocks for fifty years, was ordered
to be cut up in 1874, — an operation which is not yet completed.
June i, 1826, the keel of the sloop-of-war "Warren" was laid, and
November 29 she was successfully launched and hauled upon the flats, and
careened to finish coppering her. Feb. 11, 1827, the harbor was shut up
with ice, but on the 22d the " Warren," Master Commandant Lawrence
Kearney, sailed for the Mediterranean, where she did good service against
the pirates of the Grecian Archipelago. March I, the keel of the sloop-of-
war " Falmouth " was laid, and she was launched November 3. Her cost,
when ready for sea, was $120,931.50.
In 1827 the stone dry dock was begun, under the superintendence of
ize the navy of the German Confederation ; and Commodore Spicer died in command in the
his son, Commodore Foxhall A. Parker, distin- commandant's house, Nov. 29, 1878; his funeral
guished as a writer and for his services in the was conducted without military or other parade
Civil War, died a few months after relinquishing or ceremony, by his particular request,
his command, at the Naval Academy at Annapo- > Not one of the commandants was Boston
lis, whither he had been called to its superintend- born, and only Commodore John Downes, who
ency. Hudson and Montgomery, who conducted was born in Canton, in 1784, was a native of
the affairs of the Yard through the period of the Massachusetts. Of the twenty-two command-
Civil War, were brave and distinguished offi- ants only four are now living; namely, Rodgers,
cers; Hudson was the second in command of Nichols, Steedman, and Ransom, — the latter
Wilkes's exploring expedition. Rodgers is the now in command.
present superintendent of the Navai Observa- ' She was the fourth vessel of war to re-
tory, and has a well-known naval record. Nich- ceive that name, and is reported to have cost
ols, Parrott, Steedman, Spicer, and Ransom, the $109,156. After twenty years of almost constant
present incumbent, all made good records in service, she was wrecked on the Island of Eleu-
the Rebellion, — Nichols (now the Chief of the thera, West Indies, in 1846.
Bureau of Yards and Docks) and Ransom, with 2 From a newspaper of that date we learn
Farragut at New Orleans ; Parrott and Steed- that it was at first proposed to call her " The
man, with Dupont at Port Royal and elsewhere. Massachusetts."
THE NAVY, AND THE CHARLESTOWN NAVY YARD. 355
Loammi Baldwin, Esq., who had been commissioned in the previous August
to make estimates. It appears from the Yard journal that the first " steam
tow-boat load of stone" for it was received August 23, and that the stone
wall of the dock was begun the next day. The dock was not completed
until 1834.
Up to 1828 the improvements in the several navy yards had been with-
out any organized plan; but on March 3, 1827, Congress enacted a law
directing the President to cause the navy yards of the United States to be
thoroughly examined, and plans to be prepared for their improvement, etc.,
from which no deviation but by his special order was to be made. The
President appointed Commodores Bainbridge, Chauncey, and Morris to carry
this law into effect, and Loammi Baldwin engineer to aid them in their
surveys, and in forming plans, etc. This board commenced its labors in
1827, but did not complete them until 1829. The plan for the Charlestown
Navy Yard was completed and issued Aug. 1 1, 1828, and (see plan) has since
governed all the improvements, with such modifications as have become
necessary by the advance of naval science and the modern requirements in
the equipment, armament, and construction of vessels of war. Railroads
have supplanted canals, and steam power, heavy ordnance, and iron and
iron-clad ships have combined to modify essentially the plan of 1827. l
July 20, 1832, Commodore Charles Morris, having been commissioned as
one of the Navy Board, was relieved as Commandant by Commodore Wil-
liam Bainbridge. Jan. 23, the commissioners authorized the gun carriages
of the saluting battery to be made of iron, which is probably the first in-
stance of metallic gun carriages being used in our own or any other naval
service.
On account of ill health Commodore Bainbridge obtained permission to
pass the winter months in Philadelphia, and left the Yard in command of
Master Commandant Joseph Smith.2 He returned and resumed active com-
mand of the station, Jan. 10, 1833, but soon failed again, and was informed
by his physicians that his case was hopeless. On March 21 he wrote this
touching letter to the secretary: "My health is so bad, and this climate so
severe, that it renders it necessary for me to ask the favor to be relieved
from my present command on the ist of May next. In making this request
I feel confident our excellent President will grant it, with your approba-
tion, to one who has served his country as commander nearly thirty-five
years most zealously, and, as he trusts, most faithfully." He failed rap-
idly, and on April 13 wrote his last letter to the Department, turning over
the command to Captain Smith temporarily, until the arrival of Commo-
dore Jesse Duncan Elliott, appointed to take command on the ist of May.
The death of Commodore Bainbridge, who had been so long and so much
identified with the station, took place at the naval asylum in Philadelphia,
July 27, 1833. When wandering in mind he raised himself up with a last
effort, called for his arms, and ordered all to board the enemy. He was
1 See plan of 1880. 2 For many years Chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks.
356
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
fifty-nine years, two months, and twenty-one days old. On July 30 the
flags at Charlestown Navy Yard, and at all the other naval stations, were
half-masted, and a commodore's salute of minute guns fired.
In 1834 the dry dock was finished,1 having cost $677,089.78, when trans-
ferred by the constructing engineer to the commandant.2
The new commandant, Commodore Elliott, was a man of rough man-
ners,— whence he obtained the sobriquet of "Old Bruin," — and of an
active and despotic disposition. He at once instituted changes and re-
forms in the methods of administration, which, added to the reputation he
had acquired at the battle of Lake Erie and as the second of Barren in his
unfortunate duel with Decatur, made him unpopular with his officers, and
were the occasion of several reports and courts-martial. He also, from his
extreme partisan worship of his idol — General Jackson — soon became un-
popular with the citizens of Boston, who at the time were strongly of the
opposite side of politics.
1 In 1858-60 the dock was lengthened sixty-
five feet at the head, modern vessels having out-
grown its capacity.
2 Before the dock was entirely completed it
was decided to dock the " Constitution." Ac-
cordingly she was admitted June 24, being the
second ship of war ever docked in the United
States, — the "Delaware," 74, having been. en-
tered into the Norfolk Dry Dock on June 17,
a week previous. The docking of the "Con-
stitution " was made a great occasion. All the
officers were assembled in full dress, and Martin
Van Buren, the Vice-President of the United
States, Lewis Cass, Secretary of War, and Levi
Woodbury were present; and Commodore Hull
appeared once more upon her deck in com-
mand. The President of the United States,
General Andrew Jackson, was only prevented
by illness from being present. Commodore El-
liott, however, in a speech at Hagerstown, Mary-
land, Nov. 14, 1833, says that the President was
on board : " General Jackson became the guest
of the State by invitation of the Legislature, and
the time of his visit was seized upon as an aus-
picious season for bringing the trophy of the
nation, Old Ironsides, into the cradle which was
originally built for her reception. On this occa-
sion there were on board of her the President
of the United States and his Cabinet, His Ex-
cellency the Governor of Massachusetts, my es-
timable friend Joel N. Poinsett, of South Car-
olina, and last, not least, Commodore Hull, the
man who first broke the charm of British naval
invincibility on the ocean, together with such offi-
cers and men who had participated in the various
battles in which that noble frigate was engaged.
Thus you will see that I had four important em-
blems of the old vessel's glory, — Jackson, the
hero who had but a short time before declared
that ' the Constitution ! it must and shall be pre-
served! ' the Hon. J. N. Poinsett, of South Car-
olina, the State in which her timbers grew ; the
Hon. Levi Lincoln, of the Commonwealth in
which she received her architectural construc-
tion ; and Commodore Hull and the brave officers
and men who had gloriously sustained her amid
the battle's rage."
The old frigate, when in the dock, presented a
most venerable appearance, her bottom being en-
crusted with mussels, and her ornamental work
being all stripped off. She was rebuilt under
the superintendence of naval constructor Josiah
Barker, and emerged from the dock June 21,
1834, virtually a new ship, having been three
days short of a year in it. While care was taken
to preserve her model and dimensions, scarcely
a timber of her frame above the keel and floor
timbers was retained.
[ Josiah Barker, who was born in Marshfield,
in 1763, had served in the Revolution, both in
the army and navy, sailing with Manly in the
" Hague," among the West Indies. He had be-
gun a shipyard as early as 1795, where now the
Navy Yard is, and later he built vessels near the
old State-prison. He built the " Independence,"
" Virginia," " Vermont," " Frolic," " Marion,"
"Cyane," and " Bainbridge," and subsequently
the " Portsmouth" at the Kittery yard. (Drake's
Landmarks of Middlesex, 41. H. H. Edes's Me-
morial of ' yosiah Barker, privately printed, 1871.)
It should be remembered that while a Charles-
town mechanic rebuilt her, it was a Boston poet
who so led and sustained public opinion in a
protest against breaking her up, that the order
for her destruction was reversed; and this adds
another claim for the old craft to be considered
peculiarly a Boston ship. The reader will recall
Holmes's " Ay, tear her tattered ensign down,"
and his indignant dread lest " The harpies of the
shore shall pluck the eagle of the sea." — EoJ.
THE NAVY, AND THE CHARLESTOWN NAVY YARD. 357
The day after he had assumed the command he informed the Department
that the young gentlemen (midshipmen) were without an instructor, and in
consequence Mr. Duncan Bradford was immediately appointed a teacher
of mathematics and languages; but the school was not organized until the
middle of August. The school proved such a success, that by a general
order issued a few months later similar schools were established at the
navy yards near Norfolk and New York. This order was followed by a
series of regulations, drawn up by the Navy Commissioners, for the gov-
ernment of the midshipmen and the school, which seemed to be the re-
sult of measures taken on board the " Independence," in Boston Harbor,
in 1815, and out of which has finally come the present naval academy at
Annapolis.1
The event of Elliott's administration which occasioned the most excite-
ment was his placing a figure of Jackson on the bow of the " Constitution "
when she was rebuilt. His intention becoming known, the people very
soon manifested symptoms of indignation that the historic frigate should
be made to serve what was thought to be a partisan purpose. Com-
modore Elliott informed the Secretary of the Navy, in a letter dated Feb.
24, 1834, enclosing an obnoxious handbill, that the image was ordered in
the summer of 1833, under the following circumstances: —
" Shortly after the President had left Boston, I conversed with the architect (Mr.
Barker) who was to superintend the repairs of the ' Constitution,' about the propriety
of putting a figure on her for a head, and concluded to do so, as she had been thus or-
namented originally.2 The person who had been in the habit of carving the orna-
ments for our vessels of war (Laban S. Beecher) was therefore directed to make for
her a figure of the President of the United States, dressed as represented at the Her-
mitage, holding in his hand a scroll with this motto, ' The Constitution, it must be
presented '/' taken from the remarks which you made on her deck at the time she
was received into dock, under direction of the officer (Commodore Hull) who com-
manded her when she took the ' Guerriere.' I furthermore directed him to carve
1 Having set the midshipmen at their studies, son remained on the ship until she was hauled
the Commodore next turned his attention to the up for repair in Philadelphia, in 1874, when it
religious instruction of the officers and men un- was taken off and set up in the Philadelphia
der his command, in which he was not quite so Yard; when that yard was abandoned in 1876, it
successful. His attempt to coerce the officers of was sent to the naval academy at Annapolis,
differing beliefs into one and the same manner Md., and set up in the grounds, where it now is.
of worship created a commotion ; but of these This full-length figure was much too large for
and other aggressive measures there is no space the ship, to be symmetrical. A little boy, criti-
to speak here. cising the statue when it was in the Philadelphia
2 The original figure-head of the " Constitu- Yard, said that General Jackson must have been
tion" was a bust of Hercules, with uplifted club, run into his pantaloons, for there was no seam
carved by the Messrs. Skilling, of Boston. This or buttons to them. The billet head of 1812 was
was shot from her bow and mutilated in the sent to Philadelphia to be replaced on the bow
action before Tripoli, but was long worn in its of the old ship, but was found to be so decayed
mutilated condition. It was replaced by a bil- that another of like shape was substituted for
let head, which was worn throughout the war of it, which is now on her. See Life of Commodore
1812. Taken from her bow in 1834 this billet Elliott, by a citizen of New York, published for
head occupied a conspicuous position attached to the author in Philadelphia, 1835, for a " History
a lamp post, until 1876, on one of the principal of the Figure Head of the United States frigate
avenues in the Boston Yard. The statue of Jack- ' Constitution.' "
358 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
the busts of Hull, Bainbridge, and Stewart for her stern ornaments, thus presenting
our chief magistrate, and the three successful commanders of that favorite ship, in an ,
attitude which I deemed highly honorable to the navy and the nation. Prompted by
my own feelings of respect, . . . and aware of the honors conferred upon General
Jackson during his late tour of the State of Massachusetts, and her literary institu-
tions, and more particularly by the inhabitants of Boston and the neighboring towns,
I considered that in putting his figure upon the stem of the ' Constitution,' I would
be uniting with them in their demonstration of respect, and doing an act which would
be acceptable to our whole corps. ... I have never heard the fitness of the orna-
ment questioned until this week. . . . There is no question this handbill is gotten up
for present political purposes ; and had the figure-head been put on the frigate at the
time of the President's visit, many who now express such intemperate opinions would
have been equally zealous in raising it with acclamations to its appropriate place. /
had no political motives whatever in placing the figure there, as politics are not suffered
to be the subject of communication or action within the Yard. I did not bring the sub-
ject to you before, as I knew that custom furnished me a precedent, my predecessors
having ornamented ships with figures, eagles, and billet heads at their option." *
Two days later we find the commodore writing to the secretary: —
" I have further satisfied myself that the excitement got up at that time was only
for political effect. The enclosed letter 2 will show the disposition of the raisers of
this excitement. ... If the figure-head of the ' Constitution ' should be changed to
please them, there is no telling what they will ask next, as they now demand the re-
moval of the inscription from the head of the dry dock. The excitement has nearly
passed away since it has become known that the figure-head was ordered by myself six
months ago, unbeknown to the Government, yet fully known to one of the most active
movers in the excitement."
The Navy Commissioners wrote to the commodore in answer that he
might carry out his intentions regarding the figure-head, or place it on the
1 The handbill referred to by the Commo DECATUR, or the valiant PORTER, and not that
dore was as follows : — of a tyrant. Let us not give up the ship, but
"FREEMEN, AWAKE! or the Constittt- nail the flag of the Union to the masthead, and
tion will sink. It is a fact that ' the Old Glory* let her ride the mountain wave triumphant, with
President ' has issued his special order for a none aboard but the sons of liberty, all flesh
colossal figure of his royal self, in Roman cos- and blood, having the hearts and souls of Free-
tume, to be placed as a figure-head on Old Iron- men.
sides!!! Where is the spirit of '76? where "North Enders! shall this Boston-built ship
the brave tars who fought and conquered in be thus disgraced without remonstrance? Let
the glorious ship? where the mechanics, and this wooden god, this old Roman, building at
where the Bostonians, who have rejoiced over the expense of $300 of the people's money, be
her achievements ? Will they see the figure of presented to the office-holders, who glory in
a land lubber at her bows ? No ! let the cry be, such worship ; but for God's sake SAVE THE
' All hands on deck ! ' and save the ship by a time- SHIP from this foul disgrace !
ly remonstrance, expressing our indignation in "A NORTH ENDER."
a voice of thunder ! Let us assemble in the
cradle of liberty! all hands up for the Constitu- 2 NORTH END, 24th.
tion. Let the figure-head (if mortal man be We have made you abandon the Constitu-
worthy) be that of the brave HULL, the immortal tion; take Jackson's name off the Dock, or in
. .. . , .. ... forty-eight hours you breathe no more.
* Is not this the earliest allusion to " Old Glory," a J
name so often associated during the war of the Rebellion MANY NORTH ENDERS.
with our flag, by its defenders? Commodore Elliott, Navy Yard.
THE NAVY, AND THE CHARLESTOWN NAVY YARD. 359
bow of one of the seventy-fours building, as he saw fit, believing the latter
most appropriate ; but the busts of the naval heroes for the stern, if not too
far advanced, might be dispensed with.1
On March 20, the carver informed the commodore that three respect-
able citizens had -offered him $1,500 to be allowed to carry away the image
in the night, and added he could, if disposed, realize $20,060 for it ; and
further, so great was the excitement, " the head " was not safe in his shop.2
In consequence the commodore sent a boat the next morning in charge
of Sailing-Master Hixon, who received the figure in a box and conveyed it
to the Navy Yard, where it was completed, and placed, April 28, upon the
ship while still in the dock.
Of what happened after the ship left the dock, and was hauled into the
stream, the commodore makes report : —
" Some one last night, in spite of the sentinel and watch on board the ' Colum-
bus,' seventy-four, found means to mutilate the statue of Jackson upon the bow of
the ' Constitution,' during a severe storm of wind and rain. Suspicion at first rested
upon the marine on post and the ship keeper ; but it seems to me at present more
probable that some person from outside the yard concealed himself on board ship dur-
ing the day, and at night when the storm raged at its highest accomplished his work
and made his escape. Immediately upon learning the outrage this morning, I sent
for the carver of the head and demanded the names of the individuals who offered
him the bribe previous to its removal from his charge. These he declined giving me
until compelled to do so in due course of law, as he was under a charge of secrecy.
From this and other circumstances I am satisfied that the head was removed by some
person who was acting under the influence of a bribe ; but a small part of the head,
however, was mutilated, and that part will be replaced immediately. I am sorry to
say that I perceive a hostile feeling existing against the continuance of this ornament
in the highest circles of those opposed to the Administration." 3
It is now known that the daring deed was committed by one unaided,
enthusiastic young man, — Samuel P. Dewey, — who I believe still lives, in
hale old age, to repeat the story, and to tell what he did with the trophy of
his exploit. His story, as he gave it to Mr. Drake,4 in 1874, is as follows:
1 The busts, however, were made, and did doing it for nothing. The plaster bust which
until recently, and I believe do still, ornament the carver took as his model for the head, is
her stern. preserved in the Museum of the Naval Library
2 In an address at Hagerstown, Md., in 1843, and Institute at the Navy Yard.
Commodore Elliott said he received orders to 8 The Hon. Mahlon Dickenson, who had
repair the ship " as she originally was ; " and succeeded the Hon. Levi Woodbury as Secre-
the impression being still upon his mind of her tary of the Navy, visiting the Yard soon after
mutilated figure of Hercules when in the Medi- this occurrence, in company with the Commis-
terranean, he proceeded to have a figure made sioners, ordered the canvas covering over the
of that classic hero, and the artist was at work mutilated head continued upon it, saying no re-
upon it when he (the commodore) was frequently pairs or alterations should be made while the
and earnestly importuned by prominent citizens ship remained in Boston. Several of the "solid"
of Boston to place the head of Jackson upon merchants of Boston gave Commodore Elliott
their favorite ship. Yielding to their solicita- to understand that if he would remove the ob-
tions, he asked the artist if he could change the noxious figure from the ship, any substitute he
head to a likeness of Jackson, and the artist might order would be paid for by them.
was so delighted with the idea that he proposed * Landmarks of Old Middlesex, p. 41.
360 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
"'Old Ironsides' was moored with her head to the west, between the 74*5
' Columbus ' and ' Independence.' The former had a large number of men on
board, and a sentinel was placed where he could keep the figurehead in view ; an-
other was posted on the wharf near at hand, and a third patrolled the forecastle of
the 'Constitution.' From an open port of the 'Columbus,' the light fell upon the
graven features all these precautions were designed to protect. On the night of
the 2d of July occurred a thunder-storm of unusual violence. The lightning played
around the masts of the shipping, and only by its lurid flash could any object be
distinguished in the blackness. Young Dewey — he was only twenty-eight — un-
moored his boat from Billy Gray's wharf, in Boston, and, with his oar muffled in
an old woollen comforter, sculled out into the darkness. He had reconnoitered the
position of the ships by day, and was prepared at all points. At length he found
himself alongside the ' Independence,' the outside ship, and worked his way along
her big, black side, which served to screen him from observation. Dewey climbed
up the ' Constitution's ' side by the man-ropes, and ensconced himself in the bow,
protected by the head-boards, only placed on the ship the same day. He extended
himself on his back, and in this position sawed off the head. While here he saw
the sentry on the wharf from time to time looking earnestly towards the spot where
he was at work ; but the lightning and the storm each time drove the guard back to
the shelter of his box.
" Having completed his midnight assassination, Dewey regained his boat, to find
her full of water. She had swung under a scupper of the ship, and had received the
torrent that poured from her deck. In this plight, but never forgetting the head he
had risked his life to obtain, Dewey reached the shore. . . . After the excitement
caused by the affair — and it was of no ordinary kind — had subsided, Dewey packed
up the grim and corrugated features he had decapitated, and posted off to Washing-
ton. At Philadelphia his secret leaked out, and he was obliged to exhibit his prize to
John Tyler and Willie P. Mangum, afterward President and acting Vice- President of
the United States, who were then investigating the affairs of the United States Bank.
These grave and reverend seigniors shook their sides as they regarded the colossal
head now brought so low, and parted with Captain Dewey with warm and pressing
offers of service.
" The Captain's intention to present the head to General Jackson himself was
frustrated by the dangerous illness of the President, to whom all access was denied.
He, however, obtained an audience of Mr. Van Buren, the Vice- President. Upon
Dewey's announcing himself as the person who had taken off the ' Constitution's '
figure-head, Mr. Van Buren gave a great start, and was thrown off his usual balance.
Recovering himself, he demanded the particulars of the exploit, which seemed to
afford him no small satisfaction. Captain Dewey wished him to receive the head.
' Go to Mr. Dickenson,' said the Vice- President ; ' it belongs to his department ; say
you came from me.' To Mahlon Dickenson, Secretary of the Navy, Dewey accord-
ingly went. The venerable secretary was busily engaged with a heap of papers, and
requested his visitor to be brief. This hint was not lost on the captain, who said :
' Mr. Dickenson, I am the person who removed the figure-head from the " Constitu-
tion," and I have brought it with me for the purpose of returning it to the Govern-
ment.' The secretary threw himself back in his chair, pushed his gold-bowed
spectacles with a sudden movement up on his forehead, and regarded with genuine
astonishment the man who, after evading the most diligent search for his discovery,
THE NAVY, AND THE CHARLESTOWN NAVY YARD. 361
now came forward and made this voluntary avowal. Between amazement and choler,
the old gentleman could scarce stutter out : ' You, sir ! You ! What, sir ! Did you
have the audacity to disfigure a ship of the United States Navy ? ' — ' Sir, I took the
responsibility. — ' Well, sir, I'll have you arrested immediately ; ' and the secretary
took up the bell to summon a messenger. ' Stop, sir ! ' said the captain, ' You can-
not inflict any punishment. I can only be sued for a trespass, and in the county
where the offence was committed. Say the word, and I will go back to Charlestown,
and await my trial ; but if a Middlesex jury don't give me damages, my name is not
Devvey.' The captain had explored the ground, and there was no statute at that
time against defacing ships of war, and he knew it. Mr. Dickenson, an able lawyer,
reflected a moment, and then put down his bell. ' You are right, sir,' said he ; ' and
now tell me all about the affair.' The captain remained some time closeted with the
secretary, of whose treatment he had no reason to complain." 1
Commodore Elliott sailed in the "Constitution" on the 3d of March
for New York, and so concluded his stormy command of the Boston Yard.
His successor, Commodore John Downes, assumed charge on the i6th
of March. Commodore Downes continued the commandant for seven
years and three months, until May 31, 1842, — a longer continuous com-
mand of the station than has ever been held by any one, except the first
Superintendent, Commodore Samuel Nicholson, whose command extended
from 1800 to 1812. Commodore Downes was also the commandant from
March, 1849, to May, 1852, another period of three years; so that his
administrations cover a greater time than any other commandant's before
or since. .
The " Independence," 74, the second vessel that was docked, having
been razeed to a fine frigate,2 took on board the United States Minister
1 A nephew of Mr. Dewey, in a communica- ceived in Wheeling, Va., the bells were rung,
tion to the Boston Evening Transcript, Feb. 16, and the people, in a public meeting, passed
1875, confirmed Mr. Drake's account, and added: resolutions approving the act.
" The morning after the figure-head was gone, The " Constitution " finally sailed from Bos-
all Boston was in commotion, and Sam Dewey ton for New York with its mutilated figure of
was missing. The boots he wore the day before Jackson on her bow covered with canvas, painted
were hanging on a line in the back-yard, and his to represent the American flag. At New York
mother, having a strong suspicion that she knew the head was replaced ; and, in order to secure
who did the deed, confirmed the same by touch- it against similar assaults, a copper bolt was
ing her tongue to the boots, and ascertained that driven perpendicularly through it into the body
they had been wet by salt water." of the figure.
After the deed, Commodore Elliott posted a 2 « The ' Independence,' " says the Boston
marine sentinel, with an officer constantly by Post of that day, " is now one of the most
his side at night, to defend the figurehead from elegantly-modelled, commodious, and efficient
further mutilation; and Commodore E. reported ships in the navy. She has a battery of sixty
to the Secretary of the Navy " that on the 5th 32-pounders, thirty long guns on her main-
of July [he was probably mistaken] a second deck, and an equal number of medium guns on
attempt was made to carry off a larger portion her spar-deck. She is pierced for sixty-four
of the figure, which was discovered, one of the guns, and her stern ports may in an exigency
actors being probably drowned in attempting to be converted into a battery, by changing the
escape, while the other succeeded in passing the position of the aft and bow guns. The aggre-
wall. The boat [he adds] in which the attempt gate weight of the guns on the main-deck is
was made was captured, and is now at the yard." 1,767 cwt , and on the spar-deck, 1,505 cwt. Her
The excitement, and how far it extended, may length, 200 feet ; beam, 52 ; depth from spar-
be realized by stating the fact that when the deck to hold, 30 ; depth between the beams and
news of the mutilation of the figure was re- main-deck, 6 ft. I inch, an amount of space
VOL. III. —46.
362 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
to Russia, Hon. George M. Dallas and suite, and May 20, 1837, sailed,
under the command of Commodore John B. Nicholson, from Boston.
There can be no doubt that the change made this ship the finest and
heaviest frigate -built vessel of her time. On her arrival at Portsmouth,
England, she was visited by the chief naval authorities, who expressed
their admiration of her fine proportions and size ; and the Admiralty soon
after issued orders to lay down vessels of like character and capacity, and
to razee several ships of the line to vessels of the same class.1
Another historic vessel was launched from the Yard when, on May 24,
1842, the frigate "Cumberland" slid from her ways.2 She was a fine
frigate of one thousand seven hundred and twenty-six tons, rated as a forty-
four, but mounting sixty guns, and was built at a cost of $357,475. She
served two cruises in the Mediterranean as Commodore S. H. Stringham's
and Commodore Joseph Smith's flag-ship, and in 1846 as Commodore D.
Connor's flag-ship in the Gulf of Mexico, and saw other service. She was
afterward razeed into a decked sloop-of-war, or corvette, mounting twenty-
two heavy guns, and was finally sunk by the rebel ironclad "Virginia"
(Merrimac), in the memorable conflict in Hampton Roads, March, i862.3
On Oct. 29, 1852, the United States steamer " Princeton No. 2" was
launched. It is interesting to note that she was the successor of " Prince-
ton No. I," broken up in the Yard, and was built to contain her engines.
The first " Princeton " was not only the first screw steamship added to
our navy, but was also the first man-of-war screw steamship in the world.
Mention should be made of still another famous craft. On July 11,
1854, the keel was laid of a steam frigate, which was named the
"Merrimac;" she was launched June 14, 1855, in the presence of many
thousands of spectators, and towed to the upper shears to be masted.
The National Lancers, of Boston, were present, and a salute of thirty-
one guns was fired. The "Ohio," 74, and "Vermont," 74, in the stream,
were thronged with people. She was modelled by Chief-Constructor
John Lenthall, and built under the superintendence of Naval Constructor
Edward H. Delano. She was of three thousand two hundred tons bur-
den, was built to carry forty heavy guns, and cost complete $879,126.
which will be of the greatest utility during an 2 Her keel had been laid Oct. 29, 1825.
engagement. Mainmast, 115 feet, and main- 8 Her fate has been immortalized in Long-
yard 105, and the same suit of sails she carried fellow's ballad of The Cumberland: —
when a 74. Her draft at present is 22 feet 5
inches; and she carries 600 men, including the ,.Then ,ike a kraken huge and black)
marines. She is probably the finest ship of She crushed our ribs in her iron grasp!
her class in the world." Down went the ' Cumberland' all a-wrack,
1 On her arrival in Russia, she was visited with a sudden shudder of death.
..,.,,-. XT. , , ... , And the cannon's breath
incocnito by the Emperor Nicholas; while he
For her dying gasp.
was inspecting the ship, the character of the
royal visitor was discovered, when the imperial " Next morn, as the sun rose over the bay,
standard was hoisted at her main and a national , S«jH floated our flag at the mainmast head.
Lord, how beautiful was Thy day !
salute fired, — a signal for all the surrounding • Every waft of the air
ships of the Russian navy to hoist the Impe- Was a whisper of prayer
rial standard, and to thunder out salutes of wel- Or a dirge for the dead."
come.
THE NAVY, AND THE CHARLESTOWN NAVY YARD. 363
She sailed from Boston on her trial trip Feb. 25, 1856, and, returning,
sailed again for Annapolis, where she arrived on April 19. She was the
first screw steam-frigate launched in our navy, and while at Annapolis
was visited and admired by great numbers, including nearly all the mem-
bers of both Houses of Congress, then assembled in Washington. May
6, 1856, she sailed for Havana, and, returning to Boston July 7 follow-
ing, sailed for England September 9 of the same year, and returned to
Norfolk, Va., via St. Thomas, W. I., March 15, 1857. While in England
she was visited by the naval authorities at Portsmouth, who pronounced
her to be the finest vessel of war of her class afloat at that time ; and the
Admiralty at once issued orders to lay down several steam-frigates, pat-
terned after her. From Norfolk she returned to Boston, and was imme-
diately equipped for sea, and sailed Oct. 17, 1857, for the Pacific, bearing
the broad pennant of Commodore John Collins Long. Returning from
the Pacific, she arrived at Norfolk Feb. 6, 1860, and was put in ordinary.
This was her last service under our flag. In April, 1861, she was got
ready for sea, and but for the prevalence of treasonable counsels would
have been taken out of Norfolk before the destruction of the navy yard,
April 21, 1861. Her conversion into an ironclad, and, under the name
of "Virginia," her attack upon our ships in Hampton Roads, and her de-
feat by the little "Monitor," March 8, 1862, and destruction by the rebels,
May 11, 1862, have become matters of history.1
Jan. i, 1858, the keel of a new steamship was laid in the upper ship-
house. This ship, now known as the favorite flag-ship of Admiral Farra-
gut, — the historic "Hartford," — was launched at 11.18 A.M., November
22, having been ten months and twenty-two days on the stocks.2
1 Rear-Admiral Charles H. Davis wrote a for guests ; and the Navy- Yard band, stationed on
history of the " Merrimac," which was printed board, contributed to the interest of the occasion,
in the N. E. Hist, and Geneal. fieg., July, 1874. The flag-ship ' Ohio' (74) was also gaily decor-
2 From a newspaper account we condense ated with flags fore and aft. At half-past nine
the following report of the launch of this since several hundred workmen were disposed along
famous ship : — the ways, and with battering rams, each managed
" The weather was propitious, the mildness by four men, the work of setting up the wedges
of a summer day succeeding an eager and nip- was commenced. The dull and irregular sound
ping air, as the sun rose to the meridian; the tide of wood meeting wood was succeeded by the
was unusually high, — the highest of the year, busy clinking of the top-mauls against the iron
As the hour for the launch approached, a con- wedges, splitting out the blocks upon which the
tinuous stream of visitors came pouring into the keel rested, the wale and bilge shores having
Yard. Hundreds were accommodated in the been previously removed. The blocks were cut
long galleries of the great ship-house, many be- out, and now the ship was held stationary on
took themselves to the pier at the east side of the long inclined plane by means of a thick oak
it, and hundreds more took up positions along plank on either side, one end of which was
the sea-wall to the west of the ship. Many of the secured to the bilge-ways which went out from
officers of the navy, and a large number of ladies the ship, while the other was bolted firmly to the
and gentlemen, went on board and were launched immovable launching ways. A double jack-
in her. A large platform, temporarily erected, screw was placed under the bow of the ship, by
on the west side of the ship-house was filled with which to give her a start on her entrance into the
people, as were the tops of all the small build- watery element. The multitude of visitors mo-
ings overlooking the scene. A line of scows was mentarily increased. The harbor presented an
placed from the wharf to the 'Vermont' (74 animated appearance, dotted all around with the
guns), which was converted into a reception place cutters of the navy, manned by gallant tars, the
364
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
The ship as launched rated fourteen heavy guns, but mounted twenty-
two when equipped for sea, and measured one thousand nine hundred and
twenty tons ; under later laws her measurement was reduced to one thou-
sand three hundred and sixty-six tons, and was increased again, by the
addition of a spar-deck in 1870, to two thousand tons, and two thousand
nine hundred tons displacement. Her first cruise — 1859-61 — was to the
East Indies, as the flag-ship of Commodore Stribling. Returning thence,
she was the flag-ship of Farragut at New Orleans and at Mobile. After the
war she was sent to the East Indies as the flag-ship of Rear-Admiral H. H.
Bell, who had been Farragut's chief of staff at New Orleans. Admiral
Bell was drowned at Hiogo, Japan, while she was wearing his flag. On her
return to New York, a spar-deck, as noted, was added, and she was almost
rebuilt. She is now (1881) in the dry-dock, at the Navy Yard, Charles-
town, undergoing extensive repairs. It is worthy of remark, that she was
launched from the same ways as the " Merrimac." l
barge or long gig of some superior officer, and
numerous yawl-boats from vessels in port. Here
and there a squad of marines stood, interested
spectators of the scene, and quite a number of
the uniforms of the Boston police were to be
seen among the crowd. Some bad boys delighted
to astonish the multitude by shouting in an ec-
stasy of mirth and with roguish winks, ' There
she goes ! ' each time raising the expectation of
the bystanders, to be succeeded by looks of blank
astonishment at the presumption of Young Amer-
ica. At length the sound of hammers ceased,
the form of Mr. Delano, the constructor, ap-
peared conspicuously at the forward part of the
ship, and the order was given to saw off the
planks that alone restrained her freedom. The
plates of the saws had gone nearly through
the planks, when the ship, impatient to leave
terra firma, broke the remaining hindrance, and
glided down the ways into the water, amid the
shouts of the spectators, who first said cau-
tiously, 'She moves ! ' then, as doubt gave way
to certainty, a confident burst of ' There she
goes!1 announced the success of the launch.
The workmen cheered the ship, and those on
board returned the compliment ; the band struck
up ' Hail Columbia,' and the battery on the sea-
wall thundered a salute of thirty-two guns, — one
for every State in the Union, — and amid loud
cheers and the waving of handkerchiefs the
good ship gracefully settled down upon the tide.
As she touched the water, Miss Lizzie String-
ham, daughter of the Commandant of the Yard,
broke a bottle of Connecticut-River water across
her figurehead ; Miss Carrie Downes, daughter
of Commodore Downes, a bottle of Hartford
spring-water; and Lieutenant George H. Treble,
a bottle of sea water, obtained from outside the
harbor, — and thus was she nobly christened
THE HARTFORD. The ship floated out into
the harbor about three times her length from the
pier, when she was checked by the cables, and
her stern swung toward Chelsea, when the tugs
' Huron ' and ' Wide Awake ' steamed alongside
and towed her to the wharf. Not the slightest
accident occurred to mar the gala occasion.
Hundreds came late, to find the vessel had
gone off, and that 'time and tide wait for no
man,' — or woman."
I rjiay add to the account of the christening,
that unfortunately one of the young ladies broke
the bottle of water assigned her before the
launch, and the other, in the excitement, threw
hers wide of the mark, and it entered the water
unbroken ; so that the only bottle fairly broken
upon her bows was a bottle of sea water, held by
the writer, as he pronounced her, in loud voice,
" The good ship HARTFORD." Commodore
Stringham, consistently with his known temper-
ance proclivities, would not allow the heathen
custom of breaking a bottle of wine over the
bows, as a libation to the gods Neptune and
Bacchus.
1 Prior to the war of 1861-65, the following
vessels of war had been launched from the
Navy Yard; namely, the "Frolic," sloop-of-
war, 1813; "Independence," 74, 1814; "Alli-
gator," schooner, 1820; " Boston," sloop-of-war,
1825 ; " Warren," sloop-of-war, 1826 ; " Fal-
mouth," sloop-of-war, 1827 ; brig " Boxer," 183 r ;
brig "Porpoise," and barques "Consort" and
"Pioneer," 1836; " Marion," sloop-of-war, 1837;
" Cyane," sloop-of-war, 1839 ; brig " Bainbridge,"
1842 ; " Erie," rebuilt, 1842 ; " Cumberland,"
frigate, 1842; "Plymouth," sloop-of-war, 1843;
" Vermont," 74 (launched), 1848 ; " Princeton,"
S.S , 1851 ; " Merrimac," screw-frigate, 1855
(afterward the historic Confederate iron-clad,
"Virginia"); "Hartford," screw-sloop, 1858;
"Narragansett," screw-sloop, 1859.
THE NAVY, AND THE CHARLESTOWN NAVY YARD.
365
Between 1861 and 1866 the Civil War caused great activity in the build-
ing, equipping, and movement of vessels. During these years thirty-nine
vessels of war were built at the Navy Yard, and in the neighboring ship-
yards of Boston ; l and forty-three purchased vessels were equipped at the
Navy Yard.
When, on March 5, 1874, the iron torpedo-boat "Intrepid" was launched
from the upper ship-house, at 1.15 P. M., she was the first vessel of the kind
added to our navy.
Between the years 1832 and 1880, inclusive, — a period of forty-eight
years, — there was expended upon the establishment at Charlestown, in-
cluding the civil establishment, improvements, outlays for the magazine and
hospital, and contingent expenses and general maintenance, $10,618,716,
— an average annual expenditure of $221,223.62. This does not include
the expenditures on the ships built and repaired at the Yard during that
period, or the pay of laborers and mechanics employed on them.
There are now, in 1881, on the stocks at the Navy Yard (besides what
is left of the "Virginia"), the "Connecticut," a first-rate, of two thousand
eight hundred and sixty-nine tons, and four thousand four hundred and
forty-two tons displacement, whose keel was laid in 1864; the "Oregon,"
a double-turreted ironclad, whose keel was laid in 1864; and the " Penn-
1 The following vessels were built : " Wachu-
sett," 1861 ; " Housatonic," 1861 ; " Maritanza,"
1861 ; " Huron," 1861 ; " Chocura," 1861 ; " Mar-
blehead," 1861 ; " Sagamore," 1861 ; " Canan-
daigua," 1862 ; " Genessee," 1862; " Tioga," 1862 ;
" Massasoit," 1863 ; " Osceola," 1863 ; " Mattaba-
hassett," 1863 ; " Chicopee," 1863 ; " Tallapoosa,"
1863; " Winooski," 1863; " Pequot," 1863;
" Saco," 1863 ; " Monadnock,"i864 ; " Winnepec,"
1864 ; " Ammonoosuc," 1864 ; " Ashuelot," 1865 ;
"Speedwell," 1865; "Fortune," 1865; " Guer-
riere," 1865; " Leyden," 1866; " Palos," 1866;
" Standish," 1866; " Mayflower," 1866; " Worce-
ster" or " Manitou," 1866. Ironclads, — "Nan-
tucket," 1863; " Nahant," 1863; "Canonicus,"
1864; "Casco," 1864; " Chitno," 1864; "Shaw-
nee," 1864; " Nausett," 1865; " Squando," 1865;
" Suncook," 1865. The "Guerriere," in 1871,
took the remains of Admiral Farragut from
Portsmouth to New York; and in 1873 brought
the remains of Major-General Robert Anderson,
of Fort Sumter fame, from Nice to the same port.
The " Monadnock," a double-turreted ironclad,
was the first monitor ironclad to go from the
Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, in 1866.
The following vessels were purchased for the
United States, and equipped at the Navy Yard,
during the war : —
1861. — "P. Sprague," S.S., 963 tons, name
changed to "Flag;" "Cambridge," S.S., 858
tons; "Ethan Allen," sailing bark, 566 tons;
" Fear-not," sailing ship, 1,012 tons ; "Gemsbok,"
sailing bark, 620 tons; "Ino," sailing ship, 985
tons ; " Massachusetts," S.S., 1,115 tons > " South
Carolina," S.S., 1,165 tons; "Onward," sailing
bark, 874 tons ; " W. G. Anderson," sailing bark,
542 tons ; " Young Rover," sailing bark, 418
tons.
1862. — "Kensington," S.S., 1,052 tons.
1863. — "Aries," prize S.S., 820 tons ; " Bri-
tannia," prize S.S., 495 tons ; " Cornubia," prize
S.S., 800 tons; "Dow," prize S.S., 390 tons;
" Harvest Moon," S. W. Str., 546 tons ; " How-
gush," 397 tons; "Iron Age," S.S., 424 tons;
"Niphon," S.S., 475 tons; " Kershaw," prize
S.S., 80 tons ; " Sunflower," steam-tug, 294 tons ;
"Vicksburg," changed to " Acacia," S.S., 500
tons ; " Victory," changed to " Queen," prize
S.S., 630 tons ; " Wando;" prize S.S., 645 tons.
1864. — " Atlanta," prize S.S. ironclad, 1,006
tons; " Azalia," steam-tug, 176 tons; "Bat,"
prize S.S,, 530 tons ; " Belle," 52 tons ; " Chero-
kee," prize S.S., 606 tons ; " F.W. Lincoln," name
changed to "Phlox," Str., 317 tons; "Glide,"
steam-tug, name changed to "Glance," 80 tons;
" Little Ada," prize S.S., 196 tons ; " Philippi,"
prize S S., 311 tons; "Thistle," prize S.S., name
changed to " Dumbarton ; " " Union," name
changed to " Unit," S.S., 500 tons ; " Tristram
Shandy," prize S.S., 444 tons.
1865. — " Ella and Annie," prize S.S., 627 tons,
name changed to " Malvern ; " " R. E. Lee,"
prize S.S., 900 tons, name changed to "Fort
Donaldson ; " " Trefoil," steam-tug, 370 tons ;
"Young America," prize, 173 tons; "Yucca,"
S.S., 373 tons.
THE NAVY, AND THE CHARLESTOWN NAVY YARD.
367
sylvania," whose keel was laid in 1865. It is not probable that any of
these vessels will be launched or put to any practical use as war vessels,
being behind the times as to model and design, and much decayed. It will
be more economical to build new ships.
The "Niagara" and "Iowa," first rates, "Ossipee,"1 third rate, and
" Ohio," 74, are in ordinary at the Yard. They are not likely to be called
into active service again, as they are decayed, and more or less of an obso-
lete type. The steam-frigate "Wabash" lies off the Yard, in commission
as the receiving ship for recruits; and the "Hartford," as has been stated,
is in the dry-dock undergoing extensive repairs, which will be completed
in 1882.
The Navy Yard, which was originally little more than an unpromising
mud flat, with additional purchases since made, and the filling-in of flats
and marshes, now contains an area of eighty-seven and a half acres.2
1 The "Ossipee" was towed to Philadelphia
in May, 1881, by the " Vandalia," to be rebuilt.
2 It is surrounded on the land side by a sub-
stantial granite wall, twelve feet high, built in
1825-26, and has a water-frontage of eight thou-
sand two hundred and seventy feet ; it has three
building-slips and four ship-houses: in all seven
building-ways for vessels. There is a wet-timber
dock at the eastern end of the yard, enclosing
an area of over five acres. In the upper part of
the Yard are two wet basins, only separated by
a roadway, and covering an area of seven acres.
It has been proposed to excavate these basins,
to afford dockage for the ships in ordinary.
There are now (1881) inside the walls twenty
brick, eleven stone, thirty-six wooden, and two
iron buildings, besides numerous temporary sheds
and buildings. Only eight buildings are stand-
ing which are on the yard plan of 1823. The
oldest, at the entrance of the Yard, was built of
brick in 1803, for a storehouse, sail-loft, and offic-
es, etc., and is now occupied by the library and
museum of the United States Naval Library
and Institute, and for court-martial room, dis-
pensary, pay, and other offices. The dwelling-
house for the commandant was not completed
until 1809, and has been occupied by the first and
every successive commandant. Its interior has
undergone many alterations and changes ; but
its exterior presents much the appearance of
the original plan. There are two avenues run-
ning lengthwise of the Yard, ornamented with
shade-trees ; and " Flirtation Alley," along the
inner side of the ropewalk, with its shady trees
and plank-walk, is a well-known resort of lovers
on moonlight nights. There ace four dwellings
for officers at the eastern and five at the western
entrance of the Yard. The commandant's house
and the marine barracks, with the marine offi-
cers' quarters, occupy a midway position in the
Yard.
The steam-engineering building, erected in
1858, is of brick, with granite trimmings. It
covers an area of one hundred and thirty-five
thousand seven hundred and fifty-five square
feet, and contains a brass and iron foundry,
boiler, blacksmith, and machine shops ; there
are two engines of one hundred horse-power in
the building, to drive the machinery of the
establishment ; and the chimney is higher than
Bunker Hill Monument, being two hundred and
forty feet in height, while the monument is two
hundred and twenty feet. The rolling-mill con-
nected is a brick building, two hundred and seven
by eighty-eight feet, and has an engine of one
hundred horse-power.
The ropewalk, the finest in the country, was
built in 1836, of rough ashlar granite, and runs
parallel with Chelsea Street for one thousand
three himdred and sixty feet. A second story,
seven hundred and forty-eight feet long, was
built in 1856. The head house is of three
stories, sixty by seventy feet, and contains two
double engines, — the needed power for the
368
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
manufactory. It can manufacture two thou-
sand five hundred tons per year of all kinds
and sizes of rope. All the rope used by the
United States navy is manufactured at this es-
tablishment. A two-story brick building, to the
eastward in line with the wall, in 1873 was
arranged for the manufacture of wire rope, and
is capable of turning out five hundred tons of
wire rigging. There is a brick boiler-house, fifty-
five by forty-four feet, containing eight boilers,
supplying the requisite power for the use of the
establishments ; and a granite hemp-house, for
the storage of that material ; also a tarring-
house. The machinery is almost automatic, and
very interesting and curious, and in wonderful
contrast to that of former years.
CHAPTER VI.
THE ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT IN BOSTON.
BY JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE.
emancipation of four millions of slaves in the United States was
certainly one of the greatest events of the nineteenth century. If
finally accomplished by the sword, the power which wielded the sword
was the conscience and reason of the nation, awakened to the sight of this
great evil and sin. To create the moral force which overthrew slavery was
the work of the Abolitionists ; and they accomplished this work in about
thirty years, or in the life of a single generation. When we consider the
resistance which was overcome, this result must be regarded as an unex-
ampled triumph of pure truth. The slaves held in the Southern States were
valued, at the time of the Civil War, at about three thousand millions of dol-
lars. Added to this pecuniary interest was the value of cotton lands, sugar
plantations, and rice fields, cultivated exclusively by slaves. Besides this,
powerful motive for maintaining slavery were the force of custom, the habits
engendered by despotism, pride, prejudice, and hatred of outside interfer-
ence. These interests and feelings gradually united the whole South in a
determined hostility to emancipation ; and men professing Antislavery prin-
ciples could not live safely in many of the slaveholding States. This united
South had for its allies at the North both the great political parties, the
commercial and manufacturing interests, nearly the whole press, and both
extremes of society. Abolition was equally obnoxious in the parlors of the
wealthy and to the crowd of roughs in the streets, — fashion and the mob
being for once united by a common enmity. It was against this immense
weight of opposition that the Abolitionists contended ; and their strength
consisted wholly in the justice of their cause, and the enthusiasm which
that cause inspired. They could a"ppeal to no personal interests or par-
tialities. Their client, the colored man, was unattractive, ignorant, without
influence, and could make them no return for their generous labors. They
must " give, hoping for nothing again." In this cause they must be prepared
to sacrifice the dearest friendships, social position, opportunity of advance-
ment, — and with scarcely any reasonable prospect of ultimate success.
Unless they could trust in the immortal power of justice and truth, they
VOL. HI. — 47.
370 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
had little ground for hope. But they did so trust, and their faith was re-
warded with sight. Many lived to see the triumph of their cause, and in
their case was realized the saying that " those who go forth weeping, bear-
ing good seed, shall doubtless come again rejoicing, bringing their sheaves
with them."
It is therefore no small honor to the city of Boston that it was the
cradle in which this new Revolution was rocked, and the nursery where it
grew into strength. It was not so considered at first. For a long time the
presence of the Abolitionists and their meetings were regarded by the large
majority of Bostonians as a misfortune ; but we can now see that a com-
munity which furnished the proper soil in which such a plant could grow
must have possessed a strong moral character.
It was not accident which made Boston the cradle of the Abolition
movement, any more than it was accident which made it, sixty years be-
fore, the cradle of the American Revolution. A habit of independent
thought, and a vigorous moral training, supplied the conditions necessary
for both.
Before the Revolution, Massachusetts, like all the other States, held slaves.
Those of my age can remember seeing in many households old colored men
and women who, though they had become free, remained in the families
where they had been born slaves. In the Congressional report of Mr. J. R.
Ingersoll, in 1844, on Antislavery resolutions passed by Massachusetts, the
State is taunted with advertisements from Boston newspapers of 1776, offer-
ing slaves for sale in that town. The very number of the Boston Gazette,
July 22, 1776, which contained the Declaration of Independence, advertised
a stout, healthy negro-man for sale. Down to that time slavery continued,
though in a mild form, in our State. The number of slaves was not large.
In 1763 the number of blacks to whites was as one to forty-five ; in 1776, as
one to sixty-five.1 They were not badly treated. Slaves in Massachusetts
were always allowed to testify against white men, even in capital cases.2 No
woman was ever known to labor as a field-hand in this State. The senti-
ment of the people was strong against slavery, even in early days. In 1646
the General Court passed an order sending back to Africa a negro stolen
there and brought to Boston, expressing its indignation against man-stealing.
In 1701 the Selectmen of Boston passed a vote requesting the Representa-
tives "to put a period to negroes being slaves." In 1766 and 1767 votes
were passed in town-meeting instructing its representatives " THAT for the
total abolishing of slavery among us, THAT you move for a law to prohibit
the importation and purchasing of slaves for the future." 3 In 1770 occurred
the case of Prince Boston, who was hired and paid wages by a Quaker in
Nantucket, — Elisha Folger ; and when his owner brought an action for the
recovery of his slave, the jury returned a verdict against the owner, and
1 Report to Massachusetts House of Represen- 2 Lecture at Lowell Institute, by Emory Wash-
tatives, January, 1822, by Theodore Lyman, Jr., burn, 1869.
afterward Mayor of Boston. 8 Theodore Lyman, Jr.'s Report, as above.
THE ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT IN BOSTON. 371
Prince Boston was manumitted by the magistrates. The feeling of those
Bostonians who desired independence was expressed by Sam Adams, who,
when a negro girl was offered as a present to his wife, declined to receive her
as a slave, and said, " Surry must be free on crossing the threshold of my
house." 1 This showed an advance from the time of Cotton Mather, who
entered in his diary in 1706 that he "received a singular blessing" in the
gift of " a very likely slave," which was " a mighty smile of Heaven upon his
family." In 1783 slavery came to an end in Massachusetts, by the decision
of the Supreme Court, which held that the declaration inserted in the State
Constitution of 1780, that "all men are born free and equal," abolished
slavery forever.2 In the first census of the inhabitants of the United States,
in 1790, only free persons were returned from Massachusetts, the only State
in the Union which did not then hold slaves, and the only State represented
in the first Congress, in 1789, which had formally abolished slavery.3
With such antecedents and traditions, it was natural that Massachusetts
and Boston should be the home and centre of the last and successful move-
ment for abolishing slavery throughout the whole Union.
William Lloyd Garrison, the leader of the movement, whose name will
stand forever among those which the world will not willingly let die, was not
a Boston boy indeed, though a son of Massachusetts. He was born in
Newburyport,4 Dec. 10, 1805, his father being a sea-captain, and his mother
a member of the Baptists, and a deeply religious woman. From her he
probably inherited his profoundly religious tendency and his strength of
moral conviction. After trying one or two other trades he became a printer ;
and subsequently editor, in succession, of two or three newspapers, the last
being a political journal in Bennington, Vermont. From this place he was
taken by Benjamin Lundy to Baltimore, in 1829, to assist in editing his
Antislavery paper, the Genius of Universal Emancipation. His style of writ-
ing roused great opposition ; and soon an article in which he denounced a
Mr. Todd, a fellow-townsman for taking in his vessel a cargo of eighty slaves
from Baltimore to New Orleans, caused him to be prosecuted for libel, and
sent to jail from inability to pay the fine of fifty dollars. This caused much
excitement through the country. Joseph T. Buckingham, of the Boston
Courier,?*, man who had "somewhat in him gritty," 5 printed two sonnets
written by Garrison in prison. John G. Whittier, then, or a little later, edit-
ing a Whig paper in Hartford, wrote to Henry Clay, telling him the case,
and asking him to pay the fine. Clay inclined to do so, but requested
further information from a gentleman in Baltimore. Meantime the fine was
paid by Arthur Tappan, a leading New York merchant. Garrison then
1 Robert Dickson Smith's Oration, July 5, 4 [See a view of his birthplace in Harper's
1880. Magazine, 1875, "• 166-— ED.]
2 [See the note on this point in J. P. Quincy's
chapter on " Social Life in Boston," in Vol. IV. " Th°ug^ T> my .nei!hb.or Buckinsham
r Hath somewhat in him gritty,
p. 6. ED.] Some piigj-im stufl that hates all sham,
3 Theodore Lyman's Report, as above. And he will print my ditty." — LOWELL.
372
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
proposed establishing an Antislavery paper in Washington ; but consider-
ing that the North needed conversion as much as the South, and ought to
be made the fulcrum for his lever, he came to Boston, and, Jan. i, 1831,
published the first number of the Liberator}
Mr. Oliver Johnson, one of the earliest associates of Mr. Garrison, has
given us a picture of the humble room and poor surroundings, — "the ob-
scure hole," as it was called by the mayor of the city, — where
" In a small chamber, friendless and unseen,
Toiled o'er his types one poor, unlearned young man ;
The place was dark, unfurnitured, and mean,
Yet there the freedom of a race began."
"Everything around it," says Mr. Johnson, "had an aspect of slovenly
decay. The dingy walls; the small windows, bespattered with printer's
ink; the press standing in one corner, the composing stands opposite;
the long editorial and mailing table, covered with newspapers ; the bed of
the editor and publisher on the floor, — all these made a picture never to be
forgotten."
Garrison was singularly adapted to the work for which Providence se-
lected him. He had a manifest calling, and he gave such diligence as to
make it sure. Conscience, reason, and will were the leading elements of
his character. His conscience caused him in each instance to ask, in regard
to every action, custom, or institution, " Is it right or wrong? " His under-
standing was in the highest degree logical, and to his mind every proposi-
tion was either true or false. He was not one of those who perceive much
to be said on both sides, and who sometimes confuse the clearness of their
judgment by too much balancing in th«ir thought. His fault was never
that of indecision ; he saw none of the fine shades which make a mild
transition from one opinion to its opposite; and having decided what
ought to be believed and done, nothing could afterward shake the persis-
tency of his purpose. As Dr. Wayland said of John Howard : " Having
formed his determination, he went forward to its accomplishment with an
energy which the nature of the human mind prevented from being more,
and the character of the individual forbade to be less." In these traits of
Garrison we see reproduced the main elements of New England Puritanism,
— its high moral tone ; its intensity of conviction ; its colorless, unpictur-
esque, and somewhat narrow methods of thought; its readiness to make
1 These facts, and others here given, are taken College Library, Cornell University Library,
from Oliver Johnson's book, Garrison and his Rhode Island Historical Society at Providence,
Times. Oliver Johnson and Samuel E. Sewall American Antiquarian Society at Worcester,
are almost the only survivors of those who were Library of Congress, Long Island Historical
with Garrison from the very first. [Sets of the Society at Brooklyn, Portland Public Library,
Liberator, so important to the study of the Anti- Wendell Phillips, Esq., Miss Caroline Wes-
slavery movement, have fortunately been pre- ton, of Weymouth, Mass., and the family-
served in various places. Mr. F. J. Garrison of Mr. Garrison. See further on the Liber-
reports twelve sets nearly complete : Boston ator, in Mr. Cummings's chapter in this vol-
Public Library, Boston Athenaeum, Harvard ume. — ED.]
THE ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT IN BOSTON.
373
any sacrifice to its convictions ; and that energy of will which has given
it such commanding power on both continents.
WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON.
The one question which Mr. Garrison asked concerning slavery was,
" Is it right, or is it wrong?" This question was easily answered; and the
1 [This likeness follows a daguerreotype by
Chase, taken about 1853, and selected by the
kindred of Mr. Garrison for the engraver's pur-
pose. The Editor is indebted to Mr. Wendell P.
Garrison for the following statement : —
"The number of portraits of Mr. Garrison, in every va-
riety of medium, is very great. For the print-collector only
four need be mentioned, namely : (i) A line-engraving on
steel, by S. S. Jocelyn, after the full-size oil-painting from
life, by N. Jocelyn, made in New Haven in April, 1833.
The engraving was copyrighted just a year later. The like-
ness would not now be recognized readily, and was at the
time considered a total failure. (2) A mezzotint, by John
Savtain, after the cabinet oil-painting from life, by M. C.
Torrey, made about 1836. Though faulty in its propor-
tions, this likeness approves itself by its resemblance to
Mr. Garrison's later aspect. The originals of both these
portraits, which are front views, are now in the possession
374 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
natural inference was — "Being wrong.it ought to be immediately relin-
quished." Hence the fundamental doctrine of the Abolitionists, — the duty
of immediate emancipation. To many this seemed a monstrous proposi-
tion. " What," they said ; " set free at once more than two million slaves,
— ignorant, helpless, vicious? This would be a curse to the slave and his
master alike. These two millions do not own a dollar of property ; they
•have nothing they can call their own ; not an acre of land ; no tools ; no
habits of foresight or self-control. You say slavery is a bad thing ; bad in
all its influence on slaves and master. If so, it has unfitted the slaves for
freedom ; it has depraved their characters ; it has kept them children. To
emancipate them at once would be like turning all the little children out
into the streets to support themselves. No ! Slaves ought not all to be
immediately emancipated. They ought to be gradually prepared for free-
dom by some kind of education."
Something like this was the universal answer to Garrison's demand ; but
it did not disturb him. He fell back on his postulate : " Slavery is wrong.
Every wrong act should be immediately abandoned. Therefore slavery
ought at once to cease. Do right, and leave the results to God."
When pressed more closely in regard to the consequences of his proposed
measure, he would explain his meaning thus: " By immediate emancipa-
tion I do not mean that the slaveholder should turn his slaves out of doors.
I mean that he should at once recognize that they are no longer to be held
as slaves, but to be regarded as free people, of whom he is the temporary
guardian. I mean that he should allow those to leave him who desire it,
and pay wages to those who remain." And this was, in fact, very nearly
the actual solution of the situation when immediate emancipation came as
the result of the Civil War.
The often quoted words in Garrison's opening address to the public in
the first number of the Liberator indicated its whole course. He said : —
" I am aware that many object to the severity of my language ; but is there not
cause for severity ? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On
this subject I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No ! no !
Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm ; tell him to moderately
rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher ; tell the mother to gradually extricate
her babe from the fire into which it has fallen, — but urge me not to use moderation in
a cause like the present. I am in earnest : I will not equivocate ; I will not retreat a
single inch, — AND I WILL BE HEARD."
of Edward M. Davis, Esq., of Philadelphia. (3) A litho- esteemed among the photographic likenesses of Mr. Gar-
graph, by Louis Grozelier, after the daguerreotype above rison's latest years. Neither the bust by Clevenger nor
mentioned, with the advantage of personal sittings, pub- that by Jackson was successful ; but Miss Anne Whitney's
lished in Boston by William C. Nell in 1854. This, though (1878) is to be praised without reserve. In John Rogers's
a little hard in drawing, is perhaps the most characteristic statuette group, 'The Fugitive's Story,' Mr. Garrison's
and vigorous of all the multiplied likenesses. The some- head is carefully and not badly modelled, but the figure is
what stern expression comports well with the motto be- stiffly posed."
neath,- ' I am in earnest,' etc. (4) A line-and-stipple The present likeness represents Mr. Garrison
engraving, by F. T. Stuart, Boston, after a photograph by . ., r , . , . • , TT. ,
Warren, serving as frontispiece to Johnson's Gannon and at the *& °f ab°Ut ^rty-eight. His later years
fits Times ( 1880). The view here is three-quarters to the were Passed in a house on Highland Street, in
right. The copy is very true to the original, which is well Roxbury. — ED.]
THE ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT IN BOSTON. 375
No one can say that Mr. Garrison did not fulfil to the letter this pro-
gramme. He did not equivocate ; he did not retreat ; and he was heard !
This trumpet uttered no uncertain sound ; this soldier never fought as one
who beat the air ; this voice was heard and listened to year after year by
increasing numbers. And now, looking back on the long conflict and its
results, it is difficult to see how any other method could have been success-
ful. Margaret Fuller explained in one fitting sentence the reason of the
extreme sharpness of speech of the Abolitionists : " The nation was deaf in
regard to the evils of slavery ; and those who have to speak to deaf people
naturally acquire the habit of saying everything on a very high key." The
people would hardly have gone out into that wilderness of solitary convic-
tions where Garrison and his few friends were, " to see a reed shaken by the
wind" or "a man clothed in soft raiment;" but they did go out tt> hear
Garrison. Nine years after the first issue of the Liberator there were nearly
two thousand Antislavery societies, with a membership of about two hun-
dred thousand persons.1
The first meeting for the purpose of forming an Antislavery Society on
these principles was held in the office of Samuel E. Sewall, then a rising
young lawyer of Boston, Nov. 13, 1831. Another followed, December 16.
The names of those present, besides Mr. Garrison and Mr. Sewall, were Ellis
Gray Loring and David Lee Child, Boston lawyers ; Isaac Knapp, publisher
of the Liberator ;. Samuel J. May, Unitarian minister, settled in Brooklyn,
Connecticut, who was at the November meeting; Oliver Johnson, William
J. Snelling, Alonzo Lewis, Abner Phelps, Abijah Blanchard, and Gamaliel
Bradford. A constitution was drafted by Ellis Gray Loring and Oliver
Johnson. The meeting for adopting this constitution was held, Jan. 6, 1832,
in a school-room under the African Church on Belknap Street. It was a
dismal night ; a fierce snow-storm was raging outside, and within the room
were a very few persons, scarcely known, with neither wealth nor influence ;
but then and there they united to overthrow the vast system of American
slavery, — and in this effort they succeeded. Before that generation had
passed away the work was done, and the society was disbanded as being no
longer necessary. Then, as often in the course of history, it happened
that God " chose the foolish things of this world to confound the wise; and
weak things to confound the mighty ; and things which were despised, and
things which were not, to bring to nought things that were."
Before Mr. Garrison had been engaged in this work many years he was
surrounded by a body of devoted friends and fellow-laborers, many of them
belonging to this city by birth or residence. In Boston, and by the help of
Boston men, he found the TTOV crrw, the fulcrum for his lever, by which to
move the world. Among these Bostonians we may mention the names of
Samuel E. Sewall, Ellis Gray Loring and his wife Louisa Loring, Mrs. Maria
W. Chapman and her sisters the Misses Weston, Samuel J. May, David Lee
Child and his wife Lydia Maria Child, Henry I. Bowditch, William I. Bow-
1 Wilson's Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, \. 187.
376 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
ditch, George Bradburn, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Pollen, John Pier-
pont, Francis Jackson, Charles F. Hovey, Eliza Lee Follen, Susan Cabot,
Charles K. Whipple, Lucy Stone, and many others. Younger than most
of these, but among the leaders, were Wendell Phillips and Edmund Quincy.
Conspicuous for their Antislavery action, though not so closely affiliated
with the Antislavery Society, were William Ellery Channing, Theodore
Parker, Charles Sumner, Samuel G. Howe, Horace Mann, John A. Andrew,
and John G. Palfrey.
Prominent among these associates of Garrison, both by his unsurpassed
ability as an orator, his ready dialectics, and his unswerving devotion to the
Antislavery cause, was Wendell Phillips. Born in Boston in i8n,son of the
first mayor of the city, he graduated at Harvard in the class of 1831, and in
the law-class of 1834. A witness of the mobbing of Garrison in 1835, he
joined the Antislavery Society in 1836, and first appeared as an Anti-
slavery speaker in the meeting occasioned by the murder of Lovejoy in
1837. From that time forward, until the final abolition of slavery, his time,
thought, and means were devoted to this subject. As a public speaker he
has been excelled by none, in our day, in the power of holding a miscellane-
ous audience, even when most hostile to himself and his ideas. Calm and self-
possessed, speaking with deliberation, — without that fiery flow of thoughts
and words which many consider as alone deserving the name of eloquence, —
he charms his audience by clear, strong statement, happy illustration, un-
expected surprises, unremitting appeals to human hopes and fears, loves
and hates, and by contempt for baseness and admiration for truth and
manly courage.
Another leader in the Garrisonian body was Edmund Quincy. Belonging
to a family 2 in which patriotism, manly independence, and fearless speech
have been transmitted from generation to generation, it was a good day for
Antislavery in Boston when he gave to it his share of such an inheritance.
With less fluency on the platform than Phillips, his clear, good sense,
sharp logic, self-possession, and imperturbable determination made him an
interesting speaker and formidable antagonist. He added to these qualities
one very rare among these stern reformers, — a keen and brilliant wit.
Satire and sarcasm they possessed abundantly; but only Edmund Quincy
in Boston, and John P. Hale in the United States Senate were able to make
fun of their antagonists while they demolished their arguments, and to speak
the sober truth merrily. During many years a correspondent of the New
York Antislavery Standard and the New York Tribune, the letters of
Edmund Quincy sparkled with wit; and a very entertaining and instructive
history of the times might be made by a judicious selection from those
letters.
Several members of the Boston Bar did not hesitate early to identify them-
selves with the obnoxious Garrisonian Abolitionists, and prominent among
1 [He was the son of the elder Mayor Quincy. — ED.]
THE ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT IN BOSTON.
377
them to the last were Ellis Gray Loring, Samuel E. Sewall, and David Lee
Child. Mr. Loring was wise, calm, strong, and gentle ; a man more fond of
literature and home than of the stormy Antislavery arena ; but he was one
always to be relied on to devote his hand, thought, heart, and means to the
cause he accounted sacred. Mr. Sewall is still living among us in an hon-
ored age, and his modesty forbids that we should say more of him than
this, — thrat in the long line of worthies who have honored the name of Sewall
in Massachusetts, none will be found more deserving of her grateful remem-
brance than he.
Among the clergymen who very early took part with the Garrisonians
were Amos A. Phelps, Samuel J. May, Samuel May, Jr., and Charles Pollen.
Less intimately connected with them, but warmly sympathizing with their
purpose, were John Pierpont, Theodore Parker, Caleb Stetson, Henry Ware,
Jr., Charles Lowell, John G. Palfrey, and others not so closely identified
with Boston. Amos A. Phelps was the pastor of the Pine-Street Church,
and his conversion to Antislavery was due to one of his parishioners, —
Oliver Johnson. Besides other services, he helped the movement by con-
tributing the definition of slavery which was accepted by all the Abolition-
ists as the basis of their action : " Slavery is the holding of a human being
as property." Samuel J. May and Samuel May, Jr., nearly related to each
other, and belonging to one of the most highly respected families in Boston,
were always intimate friends of Garrison, and co-workers with him. Charles
Pollen, a native of Germany, and an exile for his liberal principles, also
adopted this cause, — unpopular among most of his friends, but congenial to
his convictions and his heart. John Pierpont — orator, poet, reformer, cham-
pion of human rights, a terror to evil-doers — did not hesitate in putting
himself on the same side. John G. Palfrey, a representative from Boston in
Congress, having forfeited that position by his speeches and votes against
slavery and its extension, illustrated his sincerity by an act which won for
him the high esteem of well-thinking men. Becoming heir to a part of the
estate of his father, a resident in New Orleans, his brother offered to take
the slaves as his own share, leaving other property for his Boston brother.
This Dr. Palfrey declined, because it would be, in his judgment, equivalent
to selling the slaves. He therefore took his portion of the slaves and
emancipated them, brought them to Boston and found homes and occu-
pation for them here.
A most important accession in Boston to the Antislavery movement was
when William Ellery Channing — then in the height of his influence and
fame — identified himself with it by his work on Slavery (1835) '•> ^ls letter
to James G. Birney on "The Abolitionists" (1836) ; his appearance by the
side of the Abolitionists in the State House in the same year; his demand in
1837 f°r the use of Faneuil Hall for a meeting to denounce the killing of
Lovejoy in Alton ; his speech at that meeting; and numerous publications in
relation to slavery, from that time until the end of his life. But his world-
wide reputation, his services to religion, literature, and good morals did not
VOL. in. — 48.
378 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
save him from bitter criticism and opposition from the Boston press, and
even from members of his own congregation. Though moderate in his
statements, doing full justice to the slaveholder, and differing from the
Garrisonian Abolitionists in many of their methods, it was enough that he was
an earnest opposer of slavery and defender of the Abolitionists, to draw
down on him the wrath of many of the leading citizens of Boston. In his
book on Slavery he had laid down the principles that " man cannot be
justly held and used as property ; " that " he has sacred rights, the gift of
God, and inseparable from human nature, of which slavery is the infraction."
In his letter to Birney in 1836 he said of the Abolitionists: "When I regard
their firm, fearless assertion of the rights of free discussion, of speech, and
the press, I look on them with unmixed respect. ... I do not hesitate
to say that they have rendered to freedom a more essential service than any
body of men among us. From my heart I thank them. I am myself their
debtor. I am not sure that I should this moment write in safety had they
shrunk from the conflict, shut their lips, imposed silence on their presses.
A body of men and women more blameless than the Abolitionists cannot
be found among us." Saying such words as these was enough in those
days to change many of Dr. Channing's admirers into revilers and op-
ponents. Dr. Channing had been much impressed with the wrong and evil
of slavery during a visit to the West Indies in 1830, caused by ill health.
On his return to Boston in 1831 he addressed his society, and spoke espe-
cially of what he had seen of slavery, saying such words as these: " I think
no power can do justice to the evils of slavery. They are chiefly moral ;
they act on the mind, and through the mind bring intense suffering to the
body. As far as the human soul can be destroyed, slavery is the destroyer.
The slave is regarded as property, having no rights. I feel that we have
little perception of the infinite evil of slavery, and I desire earnestly that a
new sentiment should be called forth."
Lydia Maria Child, an ardent Abolitionist and able writer, whose Appeal
in favor of that Class of Americans called Africans had just been published
(1833), gives an account of her interviews with Dr. Channing at this period,
in which she says : -
" At every interview I could see that he grew bolder and stronger on the subject,
while I felt that I grew wiser and more just. At first I thought him timid and even
slightly timeserving, but I soon discovered that I formed this estimate from ignorance
of his character. I learned that it was justice to all, not popularity for himself, which
made him so cautious. He constantly grew upon my respect, until I came to regard
him as the wisest as well as the gentlest apostle of humanity."
A little later than this, in the autumn of 1834, Samuel J. May describes
an interview with Dr. Channing, which probably hastened the publication
of his work on Slavery, which he began at Santa Cruz, but only printed
in 1835. Mr. May had identified himself with Garrison from the begin-
ning. He says that he always cherished such a reverence for Dr. Chan-
THE ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT IN BOSTON. 379
ning that he was inclined to defer to his opinions, and accept them in si-
lence. On this occasion Dr. Channing, while expressing his agreement
with the Abolitionists in all their essential doctrines, complained of their
harsh denunciations, their violent language, and frequent injustice to their
opponents; to which Mr. May at last replied: " If this is so, Sir, it is your
fault. You have held your peace, and the stones have cried out If we,
who are obscure men, silly women, babes in knowledge, commit these er-
rors, why do not such men as yourself speak, and show us the right way?"
Having thus spoken,"! bethought myself," says Mr. May, " to whom I
was administering this rebuke, — the best and greatest of our great and
good men, who had ever treated me as a father. I was overwhelmed with
a sense of my temerity. I waited, in painful silence, his reply. At last, in
a subdued voice and the kindest tones, he said : ' Brother May, I acknowl-
edge the justice of your reproof. I have been silent too long.' "
Samuel J. May, who gives us this anecdote, was himself a very re-
markable man. In him was seen not only the rare union but the perfect
harmony of strength and sweetness, leonine courage and kindly sympathy.
He would be burned at the stake for his convictions, but would not un-
necessarily hurt a fly. His presence was persuasion ; and there were few
opponents whose prejudices were not softened by his frank good-will.
Anecdotes are related of Southern slave-holders who, meeting him with
fury on account of his abolition sentiments, ended by becoming his warm
friends.
Early in August, 1835, fifteen hundred prominent citizens of Boston
appended their names to a call for a public meeting in Faneuil Hall, to
denounce the agitation of slavery as putting in peril the existence of the
Union. At this meeting men of influence charged the Abolitionists with
being disturbers of the public peace, and endangering the safety of the
country. The newspapers, with hardly an exception, took the same tone.
The Abolitionists had sent a large number of tracts and papers to the
South, — not intended for the slaves, few of whom could read them, but
for the masters, whom they wished to convert. They were, however, ac-
cused both at the North and South of seeking to stir up the slaves to in-
surrection, and wishing them to cut their masters' throats. The community
in Boston was excited against Mr. Garrison and his friends. The language
of the Abolitionists was no doubt severe, and could not be otherwise.
They were determined to arouse the conscience of the people. They did
not strike in order to strike, but in order to hit. Their object was to rouse
a sleeping nation, and woe was laid on them if they did their work negli-
gently. At the same time let us do justice to those who then resisted
the Abolitionists. The fear of losing Southern trade, and having Southern
customers driven from Boston to New York, no doubt had its influence ;
but with this was joined an honest sympathy with the difficulties and
dangers of those living in Southern States, an honest fear that the violent
380 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
speech of the Abolitionists would endanger the peace of the land, and
that it would postpone the gradual emancipation which many were then
expecting. The Abolitionists were commonly regarded as wild and reck-
less fanatics, who were ready to stir up strife between North and South, and
excite the slaves to insurrection and murder. This was the prevailing pub-
lic opinion in Boston during the first years of the Antislavery movement. It
was shared by all classes, — lawyers, legislators, the clergy, the press, and
the people generally. The conversation in the parlors of the fashionable,
the coarse profanity of the drinking saloons, the speeches in the Legisla-
ture, and the leaders in the newspapers were in full sympathy on this sub-
ject. Every man who was willing to identify himself with Mr. Garrison
and his movement did it at the risk of alienating his friends, losing his
business, hurting the feelings of those dearest to him, and encountering the
scorn and ill-will of the community. The worst of these trials was that of
being condemned by really good men, — men justly respected in Church and
State. It seemed, also, a hopeless struggle, " a warfare," as Bryant said,
which would " only end with life; a friendless warfare, lingering through
weary day and weary year, in which the timid good stood aloof, the sage
frowned, and the hissing bolt of scorn would too surely reach its aim."
Well-meaning men went so far as to be willing to give up the sacred guar-
antees of freedom in order to stop the press and shut the mouths of Aboli-
tionists. Mr. William Sullivan, an excellent lawyer and worthy gentleman
of Boston, printed a pamphlet, in which was expressed the hope " that
Massachusetts will enact laws declaring the printing, publishing, and cir-
culating pamphlets on slavery, and also holding meetings to discuss slav-
ery and abolition, to be public, indictable offences, and to provide for the
punishment thereof in such a manner as will more effectually prevent such
offences." Leonard Woods, Jr., declared in the Literary and Theological
Review, edited by him, that Abolitionists " were justly liable to the highest
civil penalties and ecclesiastical censures." And Governor Everett, in his
message to the Massachusetts Legislature in January, 1836, expressed the
opinion that the Antislavery movement would injure the condition of the
slave and endanger the Union ; and that any publication calculated " to
excite an insurrection among the slaves had been held by highly respec-
table legal authority an offence against the peace of the Commonwealth,
which may be prosecuted as a misdemeanor at common law." Such being
the general state of opinion among all classes of society, it is no wonder
that these views soon resulted, in some of the Northern States, in acts of
violence and outrage against the property and persons of the Abolitionists.
Such was the violent suppression of Miss Crandall's school for colored girls
in Canterbury, Conn. ; such were the mobs in New York which sacked the
house of Lewis Tappan ; the mobs which destroyed Mr. Birney's press in
Cincinnati, and broke up the meeting in Utica. Samuel J. May was mobbed
five times in Vermont in one month. A hall in Philadelphia, built at an
expense of $40,000 by the friends of free speech, was burned to the ground
THE ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT IN BOSTON. 381
by a mob, in the presence of the mayor and his police ; and the public
meeting held in Faneuil Hall, to denounce the Abolitionists, was followed,
in two months, by the mob of " well-dressed gentlemen," which dispersed a
meeting of women, destroyed an Antislavery sign, and threatened the life
of Mr. Garrison. A lasting discredit rested on Boston from this transaction.
It is another instance of the mischief which results when the reckless and
turbulent few take the lead, and the more numerous timidly-good remain
passive.
The facts in regard to this mob were these.1 Great offence had been
taken because George Thompson, an eminent and eloquent English Anti-
slavery orator, had delivered public addresses in the United States against
American slavery. This was thought to be a matter with which foreigners
had nothing to do. The people of Boston forgot the assistance they had
rendered to the Greeks in their insurrection against the Turkish tyranny,
and how they had delighted in the eloquence of Webster, Clay, and Everett
exerted in behalf of an oppressed people in a foreign land. It was right
apparently for Americans, though foreigners, to speak in behalf of Greek
slaves, but wrong for English foreigners to speak in behalf of American
slaves. Mr. Thompson, before he came to this country, had done such
service for the emancipation of slaves in the West Indies that in 1833,
when the Act of Emancipation was passed, Lord Brougham said in the
House of Lords : " I rise to take the crown of this most glorious victory
from every other head, and place it upon George Thompson's. He has
done more than any other man to achieve it." Having accomplished this
work at home, Mr. Thompson accepted an invitation from the Abolition-
ists of America to come and speak in behalf of freedom here. He was
immediately greeted with the title of " a British emissary," hired by " Brit-
ish gold," to destroy the American Union. He was denounced in Fan-
euil Hall by Harrison Gray Otis, Peleg Sprague, and Richard Fletcher.
It is difficult to understand the degree of excitement and blind prejudice
which then prevailed. The Boston Centinel called Thompson " a foreign
vagrant," who would never be allowed to address another meeting in this
country. The Boston Courier called him " a scoundrel," and " a vaga-
bond." The Commercial Gazette was astonished that " he should dare to
browbeat public opinion," and suggested that he and Garrison should be
" thrown overboard " if they ventured to speak again.
Wrhile the feeling thus excited was at its height, a meeting was an-
nounced of the Boston Female Antislavery Society, to be held Oct. 21,
1835, in the building, 46 Washington Street, where the Liberator was
printed. An incendiary placard was issued the same day, at 12 o'clock,
from the office of the Commercial Gazette, announcing that " the infamous
foreign scoundrel, Thompson, will hold forth this afternoon at the Liberator
1 Liberator (see the Nos. for October and No- Mob of Oct. 21, 1855. The Garrison Mob. Pa-
vember, 1835). Proceedings of the Antislavery pers relating to the Mob, edited by Theodore
meeting, held on the Twentieth Anniversary of the Lyman, 3rd.
382 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
office, No. 46 Washington Street. The present is a fair opportunity for the
friends of the Union to snake Thompson out." It added that one hundred
dollars had been raised to be paid to the man who should " first lay violent
hands on Thompson, that he might be brought to the tar-kettle before dark."
George Thompson, however, was not at the meeting, nor in the city ; nor
had he been invited to speak. The crowd, however, early collected, and
prevented all but about thirty women from entering. Some of the mob
crowded into the room. Amid this tumult the ladies calmly proceeded
with their business, Miss Mary Parker offering prayer in a clear and serene
voice. Meantime the mayor, Theodore Lyman, who before had sent some
officers to protect the building and keep out the mob, arrived himself,
cleared the building of the rioters, and urged the ladies to retire, as it might
not be in his power, with his small force, to protect them long. This they
did, the police making a passage for them through the mob. But though
the mayor assured the crowd that Mr. Thompson was not in the building,
it did not disperse, but became larger and more noisy. The mayor and his
officers continued to defend the entrance of the building; but finding that
the mob now clamored for Garrison, he went upstairs and advised Mr.
Garrison to leave the house by a private way which led into Wilson's Lane
behind. This Mr. Garrison did, but with calmness, as he continued to do
all things during the whole affair. Then the mayor went down again to
the door, and fearing that the Antislavery sign might induce the mob to
throw stones at it, and so be led on to further violence, directed it to be
taken into the house. Instead of this, however, it was put into the hands
of the mob, and destroyed. Meantime, Mr. Garrison had been intercepted
by some of the mob, a rope was coiled round his body, " probably," as he
says in his account written at the time, " to drag me through the streets."
He adds : " I fortunately extricated myself from the rope, and was seized
by two or three powerful men, to whose firmness, policy, and muscular
energy I am probably indebted for my preservation. They led me through
the streets bare-headed ; through a mighty crowd, ever and anon shouting:
1 He sha'n't be hurt ! You sha'n't hurt him ! Don't hurt him ! He is an
American ! ' This seemed to excite sympathy among many of the crowd,
and they reiterated the cry, ' He sha'n't be hurt ! " As Garrison and those
who held him approached the City Hall, then in the Old State House,
the mayor and peace officers, together with his sturdy protectors, suc-
ceeded in getting him into the City Hall. Thence he was sent in a car-
riage to the jail for temporary security ; and shortly returned to his office
and his work.1
1 These facts are taken from Mr. Garrison's the Liberator at the time positively contradict-
statements made in the Liberator, just after ed, came from a man who professed to be
these events ; from Samuel E. Sewall's state- an eye-witness. In Mr. Garrison's statement
ment written at the same time ; from the mayor's at the time, quoted in the text, he describes
account, afterward published ; and from a com- those who held him as his protectors. This
parison of the accounts of eye-witnesses. Yet does not appear in his account given twenty
eye-witnesses are sometimes mistaken. The years after, which runs thus : " The most active
story of the rope round Garrison's neck, which of the rioters found me in the second story of
THE ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT IN BOSTON. 383
As soon as it was known that the Antislavery women had been ex-
pelled from their room by the mob, Francis Jackson invited them to con-
tinue and conclude their meeting at his own house ; and they did so. He
well knew the danger. It was not improbable that the mob might attack
and destroy his house, and endanger the safety of its inmates ; but he was
determined that there should be freedom of speech in Boston, if he had
the power of securing it, at whatever peril. A calm, unpretending, silent
man, — in common times never putting himself forward, — he was one of
those who show the temper of heroes in the hour which tries men's souls.
The next event of much importance was in the following year, 1836.
That part of Governor Everett's message which related to the Abolitionists
had been referred to a joint legislative committee of five, of which George
Lunt, of Newburyport, was chairman. To the same committee were also
referred the communications from the Legislatures of slaveholding States,
making it penal for citizens of non-slaveholding States to speak or write
against slavery. Samuel J. May, Ellis Gray Loring, Mr. Garrison, William
Goodell, and Professor Charles Follen addressed the committee in opposi-
tion to any action against Abolitionists on the part of the Legislature. Dr.
Follen was interrupted by Mr. Lunt, and was told that he and his associates
were there to exculpate themselves, and not to instruct the committee. Mr.
May denied that they were there as culprits. They complained to the
Legislature of the treatment they had received, and had another hearing, at
which the same gentlemen spoke again, together with Samuel E. Sewall.
Mr. Lunt, as before, repeatedly interrupted the speakers in a threatening
manner. He was, however, rebuked for this, not only by Mr. Moseley, one
of his associates, but also by Mr. George Bond, a merchant of high standing,
who declared that in his opinion the committee was too fastidious. It was
on this occasion that the incident took place which Miss Martineau described
in a picturesque way in her article on " The Martyr-age of America."
" While the committee were, with ostentatious negligence, keeping the Abolitionists
waiting, they, to whom this business was a prelude to life or death, were earnestly con-
sulting in groups. At the further end of the chamber. Garrison and another ; somewhat
nearer, Dr. Follen, looking German all over, and a deeper earnestness than usual over-
spreading his serene and meditative countenance. In consultation with him was Ellis
Gray Loring, only too frail in form, but with a face radiant with inward light. There
were May and Goodell and Sewall and several more, and many an anxious wife, sister,
or friend looking down from the gallery. During the suspense the door opened and
Dr. Channing entered, — one of the last people who could on that wintry afternoon
have been expected. He stood a few moments, muffled in his cloak and shawl-hand-
kerchief, and then walked the whole length of the room, and was immediately seen
the carpenter's shop alluded to, and, coiling a he could do, with the small means at his disposal,
rope round my body, let me down to the crowd [Compare the statements in Mr. Bugbee's chap-
below. I was dragged, bare-headed, through ter on " Boston Under the Mayors." There is
the streets, when my clothes were nearly all torn a circumstantial account of this mob, by Ellis
from my body, etc." After reading all the ac- Ames, who was an eye-witness, in Mass. Hist.
counts, it seems evident that the mayor did all Soc. Proc., 1881. — ED.]
384 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
shaking hands with Garrison. A murmur ran through the gallery, and a smile went
round the chamber. Mrs. Chapman whispered to her next neighbor, ' Righteousness
and peace have kissed each other ! ' Garrison, the dauntless Garrison, turned pale as
ashes, and sank down on a seat. Dr. Channing had censured the Abolitionists in his
pamphlet on Slavery ; Garrison had, in the Liberator ; rejected the censure ; and here
they were shaking hands in the Senate chamber. Dr. Channing sat behind the speakers,
handing them notes, and most obviously affording them his countenance, so as to be
from that day considered by the world as an accession to their principles, though not
to their organized body."
The result was that Mr. Lunt in his report strongly condemned the Abo-
litionists, and added some resolutions wholly disapproving their doctrines
and measures ; but the Legislature laid report and resolutions on the table,
and there they remained, and were never acted on.
In the next year, 1837, occurred some of the memorable debates in Con-
gress on the right of petition, in which John Ouincy Adams held a position
hardly ever equalled by any speaker in a deliberative body. Maintaining
the right of petition, against the solid South and a large part of the North-
ern representatives, he stood like a rock in mid-ocean, against which a
thousand storms beat in vain. Though not a representative from Boston,
yet through the grandeur of his position, his immovable purpose, his vast
resources of knowledge, his keen intellect, he triumphantly defended the
rights of the whole North against the assumptions of slavery, — and the
hearts of Antislavery men in Boston were strengthened by that triumph.
In November of the same year Elijah P. Lovejoy was killed in Alton,
while defending his press which a mob was seeking to destroy. A petition
for the use of Faneuil Hall for a meeting to protest against this violation of
the principles of liberty, signed by Dr. Channing and others, was rejected
by the Boston authorities. With fearless promptitude Dr. Channing issued
an appeal to the citizens of Boston, calling on them to reverse this action of
the city government. A meeting at the Supreme Court room, presided
over by George Bond, passed resolutions prepared by Benjamin F. Hallett,
demanding of the mayor and aldermen to change their course and give the
hall. They did so, and the meeting was held. Jonathan Phillips presided.
Dr. Channing made an impressive address in favor of the right of free dis-
cussion, violated by the murder of Lovejoy. He was followed, in the same
sense, by Benjamin F. Hallett and George S. Hillard, a young lawyer, not
then known to fame. Wendell Phillips was to have followed, but the floor
was taken by the Attorney-general of the State, James Trecothic Austin,
who declared that Lovejoy " died as the fool dieth," and that the men who
killed him were as great patriots as those who threw the tea into Boston
harbor. He was loudly cheered by a large part of the meeting, and Wen-
dell Phillips, who then ascended the platform, was hooted at by the crowd ;
but in spite of their opposition and outcries he held his ground, and sternly
rebuked the speech of Austin. "When I heard," said he, "the gentleman
lay down principles which placed the murderers of Alton side by side with
THE ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT IN BOSTON. 385
Otis and Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I thought those pictured lips,"
pointing to their portraits, " would have broken into voice to rebuke the
recreant American, the slanderer of the dead." From that hour Wendell
Phillips took his place among the great orators of the land.
The combination of interests, beliefs, and habits which supported slavery
in the United States was so powerful that it seemed madness in the Aboli-
tionists to hope for success against them. First, there was the pecuniary
value of the slaves to the South, amounting even then, as was computed,
to one thousand millions of dollars. But if that vast sum had been voted
by Congress as compensation for the slaves, it would have been refused on
account of the difficulties and dangers of emancipation. More than that,
slavery had become an ingrained part of the system of life in the Southern
States ; and it was believed that the whole fabric of society would be rent
asunder by emancipation. Nor would any Southern community have con-
sented, for any amount that could be offered, to allow the negroes when
emancipated to remain among them ; and if they were bought by the North,
and all sent out of the country, where would laborers and servants be found
to take their place? As against emancipation, then, the South was a unit,
though some of the border States were not opposed to emancipation if it
could be connected with deportation of the colored people. The slave-
holders, being united, controlled the politics of the South ; and the South,
being united, controlled the politics of the nation. They held great major-
ities in Congress ; they elected pro-slavery presidents ; they took possession
of the Federal courts; the Federal power in its three branches — legisla-
tive, executive, and judicial — was held firmly in their hands. They con-
trolled the merchants of the North by their trade, the newspapers of the
North through their business ; both the fashion of the North and the mobs
were on their side. Not satisfied with this, the slave-power proceeded to
strengthen its position by a scries of successful aggressions. In 1845 it
annexed Texas, then a Free State belonging to Mexico, with the avowed
purpose of cutting it into four slave States, and so to add eight slaveholders
to the United States Senate. It obtained a new and stringent Fugitive-
Slave Law, by which to seize fugitives at the North. It repealed the
Missouri Compromise, which prohibited the extension of slavery into Ter-
ritories north of a certain parallel, so as to allow the slaveholders to carry
their slaves where they would. It obtained the opinion of the U. S. Supreme
Court, in the Dred Scott case, to the same effect. It took possession of
Kansas by violence, murdering men whose only crime it was to wish to make
it a free State ; and struck down Charles Sumner on the floor of Congress.
Such was the great and constantly increasing strength of the slave-power.
And what had the Abolitionists to oppose to it? They had no political,
social, or fashionable influence. They were mostly poor, and all were un-
popular. They had nothing on their side but Truth, Justice, and God. Re-
lying on these they were strong, eloquent, brave, untiring. Their methods
VOL. in. — 49.
386 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
were simple and few. They formed Antislavery societies, held public meet-
ings, published newspapers, tracts, and books. They took advantage of
every new act and aggression of the slave-power to appeal to the popular
indignation against wrong. They had on their side poets like Whitticr, Low-
ell, Longfellow, Pierpont, and Bryant; orators like Phillips, Fred. Douglass,
Theodore D. Weld, Stephen Foster, Parker Pillsbury, and a multitude
of others. They had noble women working for them in their societies,
speaking on the platform, writing books and pamphlets ; such women as
Maria Weston Chapman, Lucretia Mott, Louisa Loring, Lydia Maria Child,
Lucy Stone, Abby Kelley, Sarah and Angelina Grimke. At their meetings
were to be seen fugitive slaves, telling with their lips what they had known
of the barbarities of slavery, — like William and Ellen Craft, Henry Box
Brown, and Father Henson. They welcomed to their platform the defen-
ders of slavery, and any slaveholder who chanced to be in Boston was sure
to have every opportunity for the freest speech, — sure, also, of being
answered as he had never been answered before. Every outrage on free-
dom brought new converts to their side ; every triumph of the slave-power
was the text for more convincing arguments against the system which could
only live by such encroachments on the rights of all. The best thought of
the North, like that of Ralph Waldo Emerson, came to their side. The
" enraged eloquence " of their meetings drew crowds to listen. Men were
there who struck and spared not, — men like Stephen S. Foster, Parker Pills-
bury, and Henry C. Wright, to whom there was nothing sacred in Church
or State when allied with slavery. They denounced the church as " a
brotherhood of thieves ; " they cursed the Constitution of the United States,
which called on them to surrender fugitives. The higher the position of
a man, if he was on the wrong side, the better they liked to strike him.
Stormy and tumultuous were these debates, often interrupted, sometimes
broken up by the mob, but never commonplace or tame. The attacks of
the Abolitionists on the churches were excused, if not justified, by the hos-
tile attitude assumed by many of the religious newspapers and influential
ministers. While some of these came to their side, the majority of the
leading clergymen in all denominations stood aloof. These had in their
churches men allied to the South by business interests, or men who were
bitterly prejudiced against abolition. They belonged to the great de-
nominations, containing numerous Southern churches, and they foresaw
disruption if they admitted this uncompromising element. Hence many
clergymen of high standing were led to excuse or defend slavery. Most
prominent among these were Dr. Nehemiah Adams of Boston, President
Lord of Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, and Bishop Hopkins of Ver-
mont,— all of whom defended slavery as right in itself, good for masters and
slaves, and having the authority of the Bible in its favor. The President of
Dartmouth College maintained, in two pamphlets published in Boston,1 that
1 A Letter of Inquiry, etc., by a Northern Second Letter, etc., by Nathan Lord, President of
Presbyter, Boston, 1854. A Northern Presbyter's Dartmouth College, Boston, 1855.
THE ANT1SLAVERY MOVEMENT IN BOSTON. 387
slavery was a divine institution according to natural and revealed religion,
not opposed to the law of love ; that it was a wholesome institution, which
ought to be extended ; that it was right to do away with those political bar-
riers which prevented it from going into Northern Territories and Northern
States ; that it was not slaveholders, but the opposers of slavery who de-
served condemnation ; and that he, President Lord, would himself cheerfully
own slaves if it were convenient or necessary. John Henry Hopkins, Epis-
copal Bishop of the Diocese of Vermont, also published a book in 1857, in
which he began by giving a false definition of slavery, making it only serf-
dom, and ignoring the chief evils of the system. He declared, in opposi-
tion to the facts in the case, that the condition of a slave was preferable to
that of a free colored man, and in many respects superior to that of the
white laborer in the Northern States. He denied that Christianity was op-
posed to slavery; and declared that "the color of the African race forms an
insuperable obstacle to its elevation and civilization in this country." He
even went so far as to think the African slave-trade, with all its horrors, was
sent by the providence of God to bring the colored people to this country,
where they might be taught Christianity, and then sent back in mass to Africa
to civilize that continent. He seemed to forget that the Christian training
they received was chiefly a knowledge of how to raise cotton and sugar, and
that an excellent lady had recently been sent to prison for teaching them to
read and write, this action of hers being made criminal by the laws of the
Southern States. He defended the course of the South in this long struggle,
declaring that the South Was right and the North wrong. " The spirit of en-
croachment," said he, " is all on the side of the North," adding that the
North was seeking to excite the slaves against their owners. This last asser-
tion was not true, for the most ultra Abolitionists never passed a resolution
or published a tract with any such purpose. But after having shown to his
own satisfaction that the slave-trade was ordained by God, that slavery was a
divine institution, and that the slaves were the happiest laboring population
on earth, the Bishop proposed that they should all be bought by the United
States, at a cost of about sixty millions of dollars annually, and be sent
to Africa, with what object and for what purpose it was very difficult to
discover.
To these two clerical defenders of slavery was joined Dr. Nehemiah
Adams, a distinguished Orthodox divine of Boston, who has therefore a
place in the history of this discussion. Going down to South Carolina in
1854, and spending three months there, he came back and published a book
called A South-Side View of Slavery. The substance of it was that he had
found slavery an exceedingly pleasant institution; the slaves very happy ;
and he had been told by many Southern gentlemen that they were not ill-
treated, and had no wish to be free. Dr. Adams went on with the usual argu-
ments to prove slavery a divine institution, reproved the Abolitionists, and
added a few delicate hints of the advantage which might come from the re-
vival of the slave-trade and the extension of slavery in the United States.
388 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Is it wonderful that the Abolitionists, struggling against such odds in
what they believed the cause of him who came to " preach deliverance to
the captives," became rather angry and bitter when they saw themselves
opposed by such influential teachers of Christian morals?
As if all these opponents were not enough, Mr. Garrison found himself
obliged to resist and oppose a false friend, in the form of the American Col-
onization Society. This association was formed Dec. 31, 1816, and in 1821
purchased the territory in Western Africa known as Liberia. Of this society
Henry Clay was the president ; and one of its professed objects was to pro-
mote emancipation by providing a home in Africa to which frecdmen could
be sent. There were those who claimed that slavery in the United States
could thus be abolished, by sending, at an enormous expense, the total
annual increase of the colored people to Africa. Many intelligent people
were so far misled as to encourage this absurd enterprise of sending the
whole laboring population of the South from the country where their work
was needed to one where it was not needed. The Colonization Society was
encouraged by many Southern slaveholders as a means of getting rid of the
free colored people among them, who were regarded as dangerous to the
institution of slavery ; and it was supported at the North on the opposite
ground of being a method by which slavery might be gradually abolished.
Mr. Garrison exposed the fallacy of this hope, and helped to undeceive
those who had been misled by it.
It was in the year 1844 that Garrison and the Garrisonian Abolitionists
took the ground of " No union with slaveholders." In their original
declaration, adopted in 1833, they had plainly stated that the Constitution
of the United States pledged the people of the free States to assist in
putting down a slave-insurrection, and to return the fugitive to slavery;
but ten years passed by before they deduced from this fact the logical
necessity of the dissolution of the Union. Their argument now was that
the Constitution of the United States was a pro-slavery document, and that
every man who consented to vote or act under it was pledged thereby to
support slavery whenever called on to do so. It was the Union of the
North with the South which enabled the slaveholders to maintain the sys-
tem and keep down the slaves. Therefore, by simply supporting the
Union we were supporting slavery. The Union, therefore, ought to be dis-
solved, and this should be the object of all true Abolitionists.
Many, however, of the most earnest opposers of slavery hesitated at this
point, and declined to follow Mr. Garrison. They contended that if there
were pro-slavery clauses in the Constitution, its spirit and influence were
antislavery, and that the organic basis of the Union was not the Constitu-
tion but the Declaration of Independence. They maintained that the laws
of the free States were also unjust in many things, and commanded what
was wrong, and that the only way to escape this kind of compromise with
evil would be to go out of the world ; but they added that we were thus
THE ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT IN BOSTON. 389
only passively connected with wrong-doing, and that when called upon to
assist actively in returning fugitives, we had a right to refuse, under our
allegiance to the higher law of Universal Right. They also said that in
practice nothing was gained by the doctrine of disunion. Before you could
induce the North to dissolve the Union, you must convince the majority of
the people of the free States that slavery was a sin ; and when you had
convinced them of that they would not dissolve the Union, but by means
of the Union would put an end to slavery. The slaveholders, always wise
in their generation, desired to dissolve the Union, because they knew that
when they were an independent slaveholding community they could better
defend and protect this institution. Those who were opposed to slavery
ought, therefore, it was said, to maintain the Union and not to dissolve it.
The result proved that this position was the true one. Slavery was
finally abolished by the war which was begun in order to defend the Union.
It was abolished not by those who wished to destroy the Union, but by
those who were determined to preserve it. If the Garrisonians had suc-
ceeded in convincing the Northern people that it would be good and right
to separate from the South and give up the Federal Union, there would
have been no conflict. The Southern States would have been allowed to
secede, and slavery would not have been abolished as a result of the war.
It might have come to an end at last, in some other way ; but certainly not
then, and probably not for a long time.
Therefore, while the Garrisonian Abolitionists refused to vote or to take
part in public affairs, political Antislavery parties were also formed by those
who wished political action in the interests of freedom. The first of these
was the Liberty Party, begun in New York in 1840, by Myron Holley,
Alvan Stewart, and Gerrit Smith, who called a convention in Albany, at
which James G. Birney, a Kentucky Abolitionist, was nominated for Pres-
ident. Casting only seven thousand votes in that Presidential campaign, at
the next, in 1844, they had sixty thousand, and their vote probably defeated
Mr. Clay, for whom, however, many of the party had voted in order to pre-
vent the annexation of Texas, which soon followed Mr. Folk's election.
Salmon P. Chase now became one of the chief leaders of this body; but
this party was merged in 1848 in the Free-Soil party, which was formed by
a secession of Antislavery voters from the Democrats and Whigs. The
Democrats had nominated for President General Cass, who had openly op-
posed the VVilmot proviso, which excluded slavery from all territory ac-
quired from Mexico. ' This caused, especially in New York, a secession
from the Democratic party of men like William C. Bryant, Preston King,
John A. Dix, and John Van Buren. They were called Barn-burners by their
opponents, who charged them with wishing to destroy the Democratic party
in order to rid themselves of its evils, as a man might burn his barn to rid
himself of rats. On the nomination of General Taylor as the Whig candi-
date a similar but larger secession went from the Whig party. Those of
Massachusetts met in convention at Worcester and adopted a platform, the
390 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
basis of which was the Wilmot proviso. Daniel Webster, who had declared
the nomination of General Taylor " one not fit to be made," was visited in
Boston by Henry Wilson and Charles Allen, members of the convention,
and expressed his approval of the platform and his strong desire to see a
political movement which would maintain the rights of the North ; but he
did not believe the new party would succeed in doing this. The South
had ruled too long, he said, and had too much power to be defeated.
The Free-Soil State Convention of Massachusetts met in Boston, Sept.
6, 1848. Among others, Charles Sumner spoke on this occasion, and re-
ported resolutions and an address to the people. This new party cast, at
the Presidential election in November, two hundred and ninety thousand
votes, with no hope of success, but simply to maintain a principle. Charles
Sumner, who thus assisted in the formation of the Free-Soil party, was
one of the noblest contributions made by Boston to the Antislavery cause.
Born in Boston, Jan. 6, 1811 ; educated at the Boston Latin School; a stu-
dent of law in Boston, after graduating at Harvard College, he was admitted
to the Suffolk Bar in 1834. After his return from his tour in Europe he
first took an active part in the Antislavery discussion in the matter of the
"Creole." In 1841, some slaves taken on this American brig, bound from
Virginia to New Orleans, freed themselves on the voyage and took the
vessel to Nassau, where they were liberated. Daniel Webster, then Secre-
tary of State, addressed a letter to our Minister at the Court of St. James,
and claimed that the owners and officers of the, vessel ought, by the comity
of nations, to be assisted in maintaining their authority over the vessel and
all on board, — in other words, that the English Government should arrest
and return fugitives from slavery. Dr. Channing immediately wrote a
pamphlet, in which he complained that Mr. Webster's letter " maintained
morally unsound and pernicious doctrines fitted to deprave the public mind,
and tending to commit the free States to the defence and support of slav-
ery." He consulted Charles Sumner on some of the legal points before its
publication. When Dr. Channing's position was attacked in the journals
Sumner came at once to its defence, insisting on the purely local and ex-
ceptional character of slavery, — a theme which he expanded, ten years
later, in his first Antislavery speech in the Senate, entitled " Freedom Na-
tional, Slavery Sectional." He was at this time interested in the work of
Garrison, subscribed for his paper, attended many of the Antislavery meet-
ings, but declined joining their society, as he disapproved their methods.
He could not admit that the Constitution of the United States was " a cove-
nant with death and an agreement with hell," and believed that it was by
means of the Union, and not outside of it, that slavery would be abolished.
The event proved him to be right in this view. His first public appearance
in Boston in the Antislavery conflict was in the Faneuil Hall meeting of
November, 1845, called to oppose the admission of Texas into the Union.
In 1846 he addressed the meeting in Faneuil Hall, on the occasion of
the abduction of a fugitive who had escaped from New Orleans in a ship
THE ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT IN BOSTON.
391
belonging to John H. Pearson. The slave escaped from the vessel, was
pursued and captured on shore, was forcibly held against law in the waters
CHARLES SUMNER.
of Massachusetts, and sent back to slavery in the barque " Niagara." The
meeting to protest against this inhuman proceeding was presided over by
1 [This cut follows a photograph by Brady,
taken about 1869. It has once before been en-
graved in Every Saturday, and was furnished by
Sumner's friend and biographer, Edward L.
Pierce, who kindly gives the following statement
regarding other likenesses of Mr. Sumner : —
i. A crayon drawing by Eastman Johnson,
made in 1846, held by the artist to be a good
likeness, but others express a doubt. It is
owned by Longfellow, and is engraved in Pierce 's
Memoir, vol. ii. 2. A large daguerreotype, by
Southworth & Hawes, in 1853, owned by Mr.
Pierce, and engraved in Memoir, vol. i. 3. A
daguerreotype taken a few months later, owned
by Mrs. W. S. Robinson. 4. A Crayon by W.
W. Story, made for Lord Morpeth in 1854; now
392
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
John Quincy Adams, who, in a feeble and tremulous voice said : " Fifty
years ago I attended a meeting in this place, over which Elbridge Gerry
presided, who, apologizing for his age and infirmities, declared that if he
had but one day to live he would have been present. That event was the
taking out of an American frigate certain seamen by a British man-of-war."
Mr. Adams said that he appeared in that hall for the same reason, and in
defence of the same principle. Dr. Samuel G. Howe stated the facts. John
A. Andrew, secretary of the meeting, offered the resolutions. Charles
Sumner, Stephen C. Phillips, Wendell Phillips, and Theodore Parker spoke.
On this occasion Andrew and Parker first publicly associated themselves with
Sumner in Boston in a cause in which they stood by his side during so
many years ; and no three men have done more to illustrate the character
at Castle Howard; lithographed by S. W.
Chandler before the drawing went to England ;
photographed at York since Sumner's death, and
of this Mr. Pierce has a copy. 5. A portrait in
oils by M. Wight, in 1856 ; given to the Boston
Public Library in 1874 ; has been engraved.
6. A portrait by Well man Morrison, painted in
1856 ; was given to Harvrrd College in 1874 by
Oliver C. Everett, and is now in Gore Hall.
7. A photograph by Black in 1869 ; engraved in
Sumner's Works. 8. Warren of Cambridge took
several photographs about 1870-71; one stand-
ing, one sitting with a cane, one holding a French
newspaper, and one reproduced in the Memorial
published by the city in 1874. 9. A photograph
by Allen & Rowell, the last ever taken, made
late in 1873; is reproduced in the Memorial vol-
ume printed by the State in 1874, and has been
engraved by the Treasury Department at Wash-
ington. The photographers have also issued it
enlarged. 10. A portrait by Edgar Parker, n.
A portrait by William M. Hunt, not from life,
but following Allen & Rowell's photograph.
12. A full-length portrait by , taken about
1873 f°r Hayti, of which there is a copy at
Wormley's in Washington. 13. The earliest
representation of any kind is Crawford's bust of
him, taken in 1839, now in the Art Museum.
See Memoir, ii. 94, 265. 14. Milmore's bust of
him, now at the State House, is called good ;
but a repetition of it, which the State gave to
George William Curtis, is better. 15. Various
busts and statues of him were produced in plas-
ter, etc., at the time of the competition for his
bronze statue, erected in 1878 in the Public
Garden, for which Thomas Ball's design was
adopted.
The authoritative account of Sumner's life
has been well begun by his friend and one of his
literary executors, already referred to, Edward
L. Pierce, who published in 1877 two volumes
of Memoir and Letters, coming down to 1845,
when Sumner was just on the threshold of his
public career. This Memoir occasioned various
reviews, — Galaxy, December, 1877 ; Westminster
Review, January, 1878 ; Edinburgh Review, Jan-
uary, 1878; North American Ri'.'icw, 1878, by
George F. Hoar; International Review, January,
1878, " Sumner's Place in History," by B. Perley
Poore. Until this biography is completed, we
must depend, apart from the general histories of
his times, upon hasty compilations, occasioned
by his death in 1874, like C. E. Lester's /,//• and
Pitl'lic Services of Charles Sumner, Phelps's Life
of Charles Sumner, and Elias Nason's Life an /
Times of Charles Sumner. More valuable are
Carl Schurz's eulogy before the City Govern-
ment in Boston, making part of a Memorial pub-
lished by the City; James Freeman Clarke's
paper in his Memorial and Biographical Sketches :
recollections by his secretary, A. B. Johnson, pub-
lished in Scribner's Monthly, vols. viii.-x. ; and a
eulogy by G. W. Curtis before the State author-
ities, printed in a Memorial by the State. The
speeches occasioned by his death, delivered in
Congress, are preserved in a Memorial issued by
the two Houses. The colored representative from
South Carolina, R. B. Elliot, delivered an ora-
tion before the colored citizens of Boston in
Faneuil Hall, which is also the chief feature
of another Memorial volume. Mr. Pierce also
printed "A Senator's Fidelity Vindicated" in
the North American Review, July, 1878. There
are letters of his, during his public life, in Weiss's
Theodore Parker. Laugel treats of him in his
Grandes Figures Historiques. Mrs. M. C. Ames,
in her Outlines of Men, etc., gives an account of
his home. He left his library and collection
of autographs to Harvard College Library, and
an account of this Sumner Collection has been
printed by that Library. Theodore Parker
formed a scrap-book of newspaper-cuttings con-
cerning Sumner, and this is in the Public
Library, together with a special collection of
newspapers taking note of his death, and other
memorials of him. A view of the monument
over Sumner's grave at Mount Auburn is given
in the Harvard Register, July, 1881. — ED.)
THE ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT IN BOSTON. 393
of Boston in its devotion to human liberty than they. Of Andrew we shall
shortly have occasion to speak ; but we must now briefly describe the Anti-
slavery work done in Boston by Theodore Parker.
Theodore Parker was not born in Boston, but in Lexington, Mass., in
1810. His veins were filled with the blood of Puritans and Revolutionary
patriots. An earnest student, a great scholar, devoted, like Dr. Channing,
to ideas, — like Dr. Channing he laid aside his dearest literary projects to
obey the call of conscience and divine duty. That call led him to give a
large part of his time, thought, energy, and heart to the Abolition move-
ment. He first began to take a public part in it in 1845, an^ from that time
till his death he was always in the front ranks of the Antislavery work. In-
timate and familiar with Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and their body, a fre-
quent speaker on their platform, he was equally intimate with the leaders of
the political Antislavery parties. He was in correspondence with Charles
Sumner, John P. Hale, Salmon P. Chase, James G. Birney, Horace Mann,
John G. Palfrey, William H. Seward, Gerrit Smith. After coming to Boston,
in 1845, ne preached every Sunday to great audiences in the Melodeon and
Music Hall; and in his sermons discussed with fiery ardor every event bear--
ing on the great topics of Slavery and Freedom. Thus he spoke of the an-
nexation of Texas, the rendition of fugitive slaves, the war with Mexico,
and all the assaults of the slave-power on the cause of human liberty. He
spoke repeatedly in Faneuil Hall ; published many pamphlets, essays,
speeches, and sermons ; lectured on slavery through all the free States,
and once in Delaware ; aided the fugitives to escape, and sheltered them
in his house ; was a member of the vigilance committees ; and wrote many
letters to public men concerning their duties in this relation. He did not
agree with Garrison in his opposition to the Union ; he regarded the Union
as an instrument by which slavery would be abolished ; and in this he
showed his rare sagacity. Thus, from 1845 unt^ ms fatal attack in 1859,
he was a power in Boston to move public opinion in opposition to slavery,
and to bear aloft the standard of human freedom.
During all this struggle fugitives from slavery were constantly arriving
from the South, and telling the same tale of their sufferings from slavery, and
their various methods of escaping. One man had been packed in a box, and
so brought through by the freight company as goods. He afterward went
by the name of Box Brown, and told his thrilling tale on many an Antisla-
very platform. Another got under the guards of a Southern steamer bound
for Philadelphia, and clung for many hours to the vessel, though every heavy
roll buried him under the sea. Ellen Craft, a light mulatto woman, escaped
disguised as a young Southern planter, bringing her husband with her in
the character of her body servant. Father Henson, a man of much talent
and character, told a long tale of his trials and adventures in escaping from
Kentucky. These personal narrations thrilled the audiences, and brought
home to them the real horrors and miseries of the system. But among those
nurtured into eloquence by wrong, none equalled Frederick Douglass. Men
VOL. in. — 50.
394
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
listened with wonder to a speaker, of the first class of orators, who had
been born and raised a slave; and the old argument that the slaves were
not qualified for freedom seemed ridiculous wherever his clear, strong argu-
ments and his powerful appeals were heard.
1 [This likeness of Theodore Parker follows
a photograph kindly loaned by Wendell Phillips,
Esq., and copied from one taken for Miss Hunt
about 1856 or 1857. Miss Caroline C. Thayer
owns the same on porcelain, in which the expres-
sion is softer and more satisfactory. By the will
of Mrs. Parker, who is recently deceased, Story's
bust and Cheney's crayon of Parker have come
to the Public Library. This bust is engraved
in vol. ii. of Weiss's Life of Parker. Milmore's
bust, much liked by Parker's friends, is still in
the artist's studio. The authoritative account is
the Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker,
issued by John Weiss in 1864, in two volumes.
A condensed narrative is a review of this in
the North American Review, April, 1859, by
O. B. Frothingham, who in 1874 published his
Theodore Parker: A Biography, which may be
supplemented by the chapter on " Theodore
Parker, the Preacher," in Frothingham's Tran-
scendentalism in New England. Mr. Frothingham
also supplied an introduction, and Miss H. E.
Stevenson a biographical sketch, to Parker's
Discourse on Matters Pertaining to Religion, 1876.
A little book, The Life and Teachings of Theodore
Parker, by Peter Dean, was published in London
in 1877, where also had been published, in 1865,
A. Reville's Life and Writings of Parker, a trans-
THE ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT IN BOSTON. 395
Thus the years passed, the slave-power growing stronger in political
influence, carrying one measure after another, bending to its interest the
leading politicians of both parties. At the same time the moral power of
the Antislavery movement increased with still greater rapidity. A small
body in Congress resisted the encroachments of the South ; among them
was John G. Palfrey, who, in the Thirtieth Congress, delivered a speech of
great power and beauty, in which he showed the growth of the pro-slavery
influence, which he was the first to call the slave-power. He ended by
saying: "If the slaveholders insist that Union and Slavery cannot live
together, they may be taken at their own word ; but it is the Union that
must stand." It was on this occasion that John Quincy Adams exclaimed,
" Thank God ! the seal is broken." In this same debate Horace Mann
made a powerful argument against the admission of slavery into the Ter-
ritories ; he spoke forcibly on the effect of slavery in destroying manliness
and energy of character, and said : " There are in this land three million
Casper Hausers."
At last, in 1850, an effort was made by the leaders of the two great
parties, the Whigs and Democrats, to put an end to this agitation, and
silence discussion by passing a series of measures in Congress, embodied
in what was called the Compromise Bill. The question which had to be
settled was the condition to be assigned to the territory gained by the war
with Mexico. According to the VVilmot Proviso, it was to be all free. This
the slave-power bitterly opposed. In January, 1850, Henry Clay introduced
his compromise measure, which proposed to admit California as a State
and New Mexico as a Territory, without applying the Wilmot Proviso to
either; refusing to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, but pro-
hibiting the slave-trade there ; allowing the trade in slaves between the
States, and passing a more stringent fugitive-slave law. In the debate
which followed, Mr. Clay declared that " no earthly power would induce
him to introduce slavery where it did not exist."
lation of a book issued in Paris the same year. On his death various memorial sermons were
This writer had printed " Un Reformateur Am- published by Boston ministers, — W. R. Alger,
ericain" in the Revue des Deux Mondes, Oct. i, C. A. Bartol, J. F. Clarke, G. H. Hepworth, etc.
1861. See also Mr. Clarke's tribute in his Afemorial and
Parker's own works are largely illustrative Biographical Sketches. Colonel T. W. Higginson
of his intellectual development, particularly his paid one at the time in the Atlantic Afonthly, 1860.
Experiences as a Minister, with an Account of his He has frequently been the subject of commen-
Early Life, 1859, contained also in the appendix dation and animadversion in the periodical press,
of Weiss's Life of him. See the autobiographic — Bibliotheca Sacra, January, 1861, and April,
pieces in the London edition of his works (1876), 1869; Christian Examiner, January, 1864, by J.
xii. His strong feelings came out emphatically H. Allen, and July, 1864, by D. A. Wasson ; New
in his Discourse on the Death of Daniel Webster, Englander, ii. and iii., by Noah Porter ; Contem-
1852, and in his Trial for the "Misdemeanor'" of a porary Review, 1866, by Professor Cheetham ;
Speech, in Faneuil Hall, against Kidnapping, April Fortnightly Review, 1867, by M. D. Conway.
3, 1865, with His Defence. There is in the Pub- Numerous other references will be found in
lie Library a scrap-book, formed and annotated Allibone's Dictionary. A discourse by Samuel
by himself, containing newspaper cuttings relat- Longfellow was delivered at the dedication of
ing to his indictment for obstructing the United the Parker Memorial Meeting-house in Boston,
States Marshal at the time of the rendition of Sept. 21, 1873, a"d is printed in a pamphlet of
Burns. the Dedicatory Services. — ED.]
396 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
It was at this time that Daniel Webster made his famous Seventh-of-
March Speech, in which he opposed the exclusion of slavery from the Ter-
ritories by law, and accepted the Fugitive-slave law. This speech caused
the greatest sadness at the North among those who had looked to Daniel
Webster as a tower of strength against the encroachments of the slave-
power. Down to the very day when this speech was made his intimate
political friends in Boston announced that Webster was about to make a
great speech in opposition to the plans of the slaveholders. He had
already claimed the Wilmot Proviso as "his thunder;" he had consulted
with Joshua Giddings and Thaddeus Stevens in regard to his course. They
had been led to believe that he would put himself at the head of those who
opposed the extension of slavery. He now declared, however, that he was
willing to divide Texas into four slave States; he said that he was ready to
support the new fugitive-slave law with all its provisions. This speech of
Webster was a great blow to the Antislavery cause. Whittier wrote con-
cerning it his poem called " Ichabod." Men at the North regarded it, justly
or otherwise, as a bid for the Presidency. But Mr. Webster's influence was
still so great that a large and influential body of his friends in Boston, after
a little hesitation, expressed their approbation of his course. Many, how-
ever, refused to follow him. Joseph T. Buckingham, in the Massachusetts
Legislature, moved to incorporate in a series of resolutions the words for-
merly spoken by Mr. Webster, in which he had declared that the opposi-
tion of Massachusetts to the extension of slavery was universal, and that
they would " oppose such extension in all places, at all times, and under all
circumstances, against all inducements, all combinations, all compromises."
But the compromises passed through Congress and became a law, and
both the great parties decided to put down all slavery agitation ; there was
to be no more discussion of the subject in Congress or elsewhere. But an
event soon occurred which dispelled this pleasing illusion. Three months
after Daniel Webster's speech, and before the Compromise measures had
finally gone through Congress, Harriet Beecher Stowe began the story of
"Uncle Tom's Cabin" in the National Era, published in Washington. In
1852 Uncle Toms Cabin was published in Boston in book form, and is thus
a Boston book. In eight weeks the sale in the United States reached a
hundred thousand copies; in 1856 over three hundred thousand copies had
been sold in the United States, and more than a million in England. It
was translated into every language of Europe ; also into Arabic, Chinese,
and Japanese.1 Thus the whole world was reading about slavery in the
United States, and discussing it.
Two or three fugitives from slavery were arrested in Boston, and two,
Simms and Burns, surrendered by the United States Commissioners, were
1 [There are in the Public Library of all these made, Mr. George Bullen, the keeper of the
translations of Uncle Tom's Cabin as many as printed books in the Museum, has furnished a
could be procured a few years ago, the Cata- full bibliographical list of such versions to a
logue of the British Museum affording the titles new edition of the novel published in this city,
to be searched for. Since the collection was — ED.)
THE ANTJSLAVERY MOVEMENT IN BOSTON.
397
taken back into slavery ; but the trifling advantages gained by slavery from
such renditions were vastly outweighed by the indignation against the slave-
power, and all its abettors, occasioned by these transactions. In all ages and
nations it had been held odious to return fugitives into the hands of their
oppressors. The history of ancient and modern times teemed with this
sentiment. George S. Hillard was a United States Commissioner, and as
such would have been bound to surrender fugitives when brought before
him in accordance with the law; but his wife, Susan Hillard, a noble
woman, devoted to generous deeds, sheltered fugitives under their roof.
On the day of the rendition of Burns the streets through which he was to
pass were draped in black, and immense crowds filled Court Street, State
Street, and Washington Street ; the military who guarded him were received
with loud shouts as " Kidnappers ! kidnappers ! " The tension was so ex-
treme that there seemed at one moment imminent danger of a tumult which
would have cost many lives. The Fugitive-slave law was not only odious
in itself, but believed to be unconstitutional in its provisions. The United
States Constitution had provided that " no person shall be deprived of his
liberty without due process of law," and that " in all suits at common law,
where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial
by jury shall be preserved." But Simms and Burns were deprived of their
liberty without seeing either judge or jury. All the old guarantees of
human liberty seemed to be removed by this law; and those who took part
in passing it or executing it, from Daniel Webster and Millard Fillmore
down, lost their political position from that hour.
The violence of the slave-power, and its disregard for the rights of the
free States, caused many persons to accustom themselves to the thought
that sooner or later force must be met by force. Others, believing that to
send a man into slavery was a violation of the law of God, refused to permit
the Fugitive-slave law to be enforced if it were possible to prevent it. They
held themselves justified in rescuing a slave from his oppressor at any risk.
Loving peace well, they loved justice more. This sentiment showed itself in
Boston in the Shadrach rescue, the Burns riot, the formation of the vigilance
committee, and in contributions to enable the oppressed Free-State emi-
grants to Kansas to defend themselves against the Missouri invaders.
In February, 1851, Shadrach, a colored waiter at the Cornhill Coffee
House in Boston, was arrested as a fugitive from slavery under a warrant
issued by George T. Curtis, United States Commissioner. After a prelim-
inary hearing the case was adjourned ; and at this moment a body of col-
ored men seized the prisoner, rescued him from the officers, and sent him
away to Canada. Washington was filled with excitement; the President
issued a proclamation ; Congress was deeply moved. Several persons were
tried in Boston for assisting in the rescue, but none were convicted.
A few months later, Thomas M. Simms was sent into slavery by the
same commissioner. It was on this occasion that the Court House was
398 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
surrounded with chains by the United States Marshal, and the judges of
the Supreme Court of Massachusetts were obliged to stoop under this sym-
bol of the slaveholders' supremacy in order to reach their tribunals of jus-
tice. This was the hour of the deepest humiliation in Massachusetts ; but
it stirred the souls of many a son of Boston with the purpose of determined
resistance to this overbearing iniquity.
This feeling showed itself on the next occasion when the Fugitive-slave
law was enforced in Boston, by the arrest of Anthony Burns, under a war-
rant issued by Edward G. Loring. Meetings were held in Faneuil Hall and
elsewhere in Boston, at which the most determined speeches were made by
Samuel G. Howe, George R. Russell, Francis W. Bird, Thomas W. Higgin-
son, Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker, and others. Meantime a plan for
the rescue of Burns had been formed by Albert G. Browne, John L. Swift,
T. W. Higginson, and Seth Webb, Jr. ; but it failed for want of a full under-
standing between those engaged. Higginson, Webb, Lewis Hayden, and a
few companions forced their way into the Court House, but failed of their
purpose. Indictments were found against Parker, Phillips, Higginson, and
one or two more. They were defended by John P. Hale, Charles M. Ellis,
William L. Burt, John A. Andrew, and Henry F. Durant. The indictment
was quashed, and the cases dismissed.
It is not necessary to describe the emotion produced by the murderous
assault on Charles Sumner by Preston Brooks of South Carolina. This
took place in the Senate Chamber, May 22, 1856. The cause of this brutal
attack was Sumner's speech on " The Crime against Kansas." In this he
had described the terrible wrong against freedom which the slave-power had
committed in that territory. Unable to reply to his arguments, the slave-
holders answered by blows; and during four years his vacant chair in the
Senate testified in silence against this outrage. But he was spared to return
to uphold the arms of Abraham Lincoln during the Rebellion, to see the
end of slavery, and at last to be followed to his grave with the grateful
tears of vast multitudes in his own loved city of Boston.
One of the warmest friends of Sumner, and one who stood by him faith-
fully during his whole Antislavery career, was Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe.
In him there seemed to reappear in New England the romance and chiv-
alry of the Middle Ages. Born in Boston, a pupil in the Latin School, a
student of medicine here, he went to Greece to assist in its effort for inde-
pendence, when he was but just of age ; and afterward took part in the Po-
lish and French revolutionary struggles. Long after, amid his tender labors
for the blind, the deaf and dumb, the idiots, and other children of sorrow,
the Abolition movement appealed equally to his humanity and his chivalry.
Especially he was deeply interested in the movement for making Kansas a
free State. At his office on Bromfield Street you would meet the men en-
gaged in organizing that emigration to Kansas which, after years of per-
secution and trial, succeeded in saving it from slavery. There was to be
found that most generous of men, — George L. Stearns, — who, after giving
THE ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT IN BOSTON.
399
thousands of dollars to furnish the Kansas emigrants with clothing, provi-
sions, and Sharpe's rifles, is said to have given to John Brown, " first and
last, more than ten thousand dollars in money and arms." In that office
the present writer met and talked with Brown himself, just before his
movement on Harper's Ferry, and heard from his own lips the general
plan, though not the place or time, of his proposed assault on Southern
slavery.1
The struggle for freedom in Kansas excited great interest through New
England, and Boston again became the centre of operation, where this in-
terest was organized into activity. Money was raised to assist the Free-
State emigrants and supply them with all necessary help. The men raised
funds to furnish them with Sharpe's rifles and ammunition ; the women col-
lected clothing and money for food. In numberless towns small societies
were organized for this purpose, and the supplies were sent to Boston to be
forwarded to Kansas by a committee, of which Mrs. Samuel Cabot, Jr., was
the efficient and admirable head. When John Brown, of Ossawattomie,
needed money, he came to Boston and obtained it. When taken prisoner
and about to be tried, John Albion Andrew raised for his defence a sufficient
sum to obtain for him the best legal counsel. When he died in Virginia, a
martyr for freedom, a large public meeting was held in Boston to obtain
aid for his wife and surviving children. Thus Boston was faithful to the
end, and down to the beginning of the Civil War was the recognized
centre of all Antislavery movements, both moral and political.
When the Civil War began in 1861, John Albion Andrew 2 had been
chosen Governor of the State of Massachusetts. He had been long known
as an Antislavery man, and as a leading member of the Republican party ; but
few foresaw the ability he would display in his trying position, or how easily
he would rise to its difficulties. With what foresight, with what judgment,
1 See the speeches of Colonel Thomas Went- sages to the Legislature. Edwin P. Whipple
worth Higginson and others, in the Memoir of delivered the address at the commemoration ser-
Samnel Gridley Howe, by Julia Ward Howe : vices of the city, and it is contained in his Suc-
Boston, 1876. cess and Its Conditions. His military secretary,
2 [A statue of Governor Andrew stands in Albert G. Browne, Jr., prepared a sketch of his
Doric Hall in the State House. It is the work of life, which, having served as an article in the
Thomas Ball, and a published volume describes North American Review, January, 1868, was pul>
the services at the unveiling. Another statue, by lished, somewhat expanded, as The Official Life
Thomas R. Gould, was erected over his grave in of John A. Andrew, 1868. This volume also con-
the Hingham Cemetery in 1875, when it was pub- tained his valedictory address on leaving the gov-
licly dedicated, October 8, with an address by ernorship. His pastor, James Freeman Clarke,
Horace Binney Sargent. A memorial volume, printed a sketch in Harper's Monthly, February,
containing the exercises of the dedication, was 1868, afterward included in his Memorial and
compiled by Luther Stevenson, Jr., and pub- Biographical Sketches. Peleg W. Chandler sup-
lished in 1878, giving views of the statue, which plied a memoir, printed in the Mass. Hist. Soc.
is in marble. The materials for his official life Proc., April, 1880. This was later issued separ-
are contained in more than thirty thousand pages ately, with the addition of personal reminiscences
of his correspondence as Governor, preserved at and with two of the Governor's literary addresses,
the State House, and in about five thousand pages never before printed. His descent is traced in
of his private correspondence. He sent during the N. E. Hist, and Geneal. Keg., January, 1869.
his five years of service nearly one hundred mes- — ED.]
400
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
with what untiring devotion to his country's needs, with what courage to
meet every danger, his work was done, all may read in the history of that
terrible struggle. As
Boston was the leader
in the war for Inde-
pendence, under the
guidance of Sam Adams and his companions, so it was again the leader
of the North in the war for Union and Freedom, under the guidance of
John Albion Andrew. Just to all his opponents, with no self-seeking, with
imperturbable sweetness of temper, though capable of a fiery indignation
against wrong-doing, he disarmed opposition at home, and united Massa-
chusetts in an unbroken phalanx against secession. William Lloyd Garri-
son, John Albion Andrew, Charles Sumner, and other of the Boston leaders
in this struggle were fortunate beyond most reformers in living to see the
work fully accomplished to which they had given their lives. Some indeed,
like Theodore Parker, Horace Mann, and Ellis Gray Loring, "died without
the sight;" but many, like Garrison, Sumner, Phillips, Sewall, Andrew,
Oliver Johnson, Maria Chapman, Lydia Maria Child, and Lucretia Mott,
lived to see the consummation of their hopes in the advent of universal
freedom ; they lived to see a Republic trodden by no foot which was not
free. More than four millions of human beings had been changed from
slaves to freemen, had become American citizens, and had entered on an
upward career of improvement.1
Of the war itself, of which this was the result, we have nothing to say
here. A great number of Boston young men went to hardship, peril, and
death, from their interest in this cause. Those who returned had their
reward in knowing that they had assisted in the triumph of human liberty ;
those who fell have made the place where they sleep hallowed ground
forever.
" Their memory wraps the dusky mountain ;
Their spirit sparkles in the fountain ;
The meanest rill, the mightiest river,
Rolls mingling with their fame forever ! "
1 [A group symbolic of Emancipation, — af-
fording a portrait statue of Abraham Lincoln,
representing him as freeing a slave, cast in bronze
at Munich, designed by Thomas Ball, in 1874,
and presented to the city by Moses Kimball, —
was erected in 1879 m Park Square, when Fred-
erick O. Prince, the mayor of the city, delivered
a dedicatory oration, December 6. (City Docu-
ment No. 126, of 1879, describes it and the cere-
monies.) — ED.]
CHAPTER VII.
THE CONGREGATIONAL (TRINITARIAN) CHURCHES OF
BOSTON SINCE 1780.
BY THE REV. INCREASE N. TARBOX, D.D.
THIS chapter presents, in a brief and comprehensive form, the history
of those Congregational churches of Boston which, since the Amer-
ican Revolution, have kept to the Trinitarian belief. To keep within the
limited space it will be needful to avoid minuter details, and confine our-
selves strictly to a general or outline view.
The population of the town of Boston in 1775 was, according to the
common estimate, not far from 17,000. Her Congregational churches at
that time were eleven in number, named as follows, with the dates of their
organization : —
First Church Aug. 23, 1630. I Federal-Street Church
Second Church
Old South Church .
Brattle -Street Church
New North Church .
New South Church .
June 5, 1650.
May 12, 1669.
Dec. 12, 1699.
May 5, 1714-
NOV. 22, 1719.
Hollis-Street Church . .
West (Lynde Street) Church
Samuel Mather Church .
School-Street Church
Nov. 15, 1727.
Nov. 14, 1732.
Jan. 3, 1737.
May 29, 1742.
Feb. 17, 1748.
The Federal-Street Church, organized in 1727, was originally Presby-
terian, but is placed in the above list because it eventually became Congre-
gational. The two churches standing last upon the list ceased to exist soon
after the close of the war. They were both peculiar in their origin, though
in ways quite different. They were organized under such conditions that
their life and fortunes were made to be largely dependent upon the two men
who filled their pulpits. As it happened, these two men had, each of them,
a long pastorate. But upon the death of the Rev. Andrew Croswell,
minister of the School-Street Church, April 12, 1785, and of Dr. Samuel
Mather, June 27, 1785, these two organizations were suspended, and their
membership was merged in the neighboring churches. The other churches
named above continue for the most part until the present day.
Up to the Revolution the strength of the Boston population was Puritan,
after the order of the first founders, with only a small admixture of antag-
onistic elements. The church development had been, therefore, chiefly
VOL. in. — 51.
402 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Congregational. Nevertheless, in addition to the churches named above,
there were at that period three Episcopal churches, — King's Chapel, 1686;
Christ Church, 1723; and Trinity, 1728. There were also two Baptist
churches, — the First, 1665; and the Second (now known as Warren
Avenue), 1743. One Methodist church had been established, 1771 ;
and one Quaker, 1694.
It was long ago said that " Boston was the paradise of ministers." Dur-
ing the one hundred and forty-five years preceding the Revolution, in
nothing had her people taken greater delight than in their learned and able
divines, and their stately Sabbath assemblies. Favored at the beginning
in the possession of John Wilson and John Cotton, associate ministers
of the First Church, and meanwhile, as her churches multiplied, having
had her choice among the graduates of the college near at hand, her min-
istry had been her pride and boast. Her meeting-houses, though built
in the simplicity of the ancient days, with more of strength than beauty,
were yet structures of dignity, on which the thought and the wealth of the
town had been freely expended. Mr. Cotton had done more, perhaps, than
any other man, to give shape to the early Congregationalism of New Eng-
land, and to the forms and usages of her public worship. That system
which he helped to build, and which soon after was embodied in the Cam-
bridge Platform of 1648, was something grand, stately, governmental; but
it was not Congregationalism, as we now understand the meaning of that
word. It was a system of high forms and graded dignities, in which the
bench of elders, — the teaching, the pastoral, and the ruling elders, — held
all the real power; while to the common members was given the Christian
privilege of obeying their elders in the Lord. What we now regard as vital
to the true idea of a Congregational Church, — the equality of all voting
members in matters of government and order, making the organization a
simple and strict democracy — this was something known among the Pil-
grims at Plymouth from the outset, but was practically unknown in the
Massachusetts Bay through all those early years. But whatever the system
of church government prevailing in Boston before the Revolution, no one
can doubt that her churches were to her as the apple of her eye.
The Thursday, or fifth-day, Lecture was suspended for several months
during the time of the siege. Snow, in his History of Boston, says : " Thurs-
day lecture had been continued by Dr. Andrew Eliot until about the 23d of
December, and was renewed immediately after the evacuation of the town,
on the 28th of March, when Washington attended." This weekly lecture con-
tinued, as an institution, until after the middle of the present century. Some
eight or ten thousand lectures must have been delivered in the town during
the two hundred years while the custom lasted. Now and then one of more
than usual interest and importance was published and preserved. Most of
them filled their places from year to year, and from age to age, like the regu-
lar meals of a household, which furnish strength and vigor for the passing
days, and are forgotten.
THE CONGREGATIONAL (TRINITARIAN) CHURCHES. 403
In glancing back it will be seen " that from the founding of the First
Church in 1630, down to the organization of the School-Street Church in
1748, no long period had passed without adding a new church to the list.
The longest interval was that of thirty years, between the formation of the
Old South in 1669 and Brattle Street in 1699. In general a new church
appeared upon the field on an average of about ten years. This being so,
the contrast between the times going before 1748 and those following after
is very remarkable. On the old territory of Boston no new Congregational
Church appeared from the year 1748 down to the organization of Park-
Street Church in 1809; while, as we have seen, two of the churches which
existed in 1748 became extinct in 1785. In this long period of sixty-one
years not only was there no gain, but an absolute loss.
The last half of the last century and the early years of the present must
be regarded as a period peculiarly unfavorable to religious growth and
prosperity in New England. We might, in this connection, speak of the
disastrous results of the long-continued union of Church and State in our
early New England history, and other kindred causes. But leaving these
aside, there are certain open and obvious facts looking in the same general
direction, which deserve to be brought into special notice.
For fifty years and moce from the middle of the last century the minds
of men in this country were peculiarly absorbed by questions of politics
and war. First came the " French and Indian War," so-called, which
made a very heavy draft upon the families and the property of New Eng-
land. Hardly had this passed, when the fierce agitations between this and
the mother country began. This was a strife which year by year waxed
hotter and hotter, until it culminated in the eight years' struggle of the
Revolution. After this war closed, came up the long and tedious debates
touching the formation of the government and the provisions of the federal
constitution. To aggravate the case, and render matters connected with
religion still worse, our friendly alliance with France during the years of
the Revolution had made our people very familiar with French ideas of life,
here and hereafter. Nothing could be more at variance with the old New
England faith than this light, airy, unthinking philosophy. At the close of
the last century French infidelity had become quite current in New England,
especially among the young men. And nowhere was this more common
than among the young men in our colleges, — advanced thinkers, as they
thought themselves to be, and aspiring to be leaders of public opinion.
Whether we have here given the true causes or not, it must be admitted
that New England was never at a lower point, religiously, as seen in her
public and in her private life, than in the earliest years of the present
century.
Thus far our attention has been directed to Boston, as its territory was
known and bounded in the last century. But it is of course proper that
the Boston of to-day should be comprehended and exhibited. To this end
it is needful that we turn back again for a moment, and enumerate the-
404 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Congregational churches existing one hundred years ago on the territory
recently brought within the city limits. These churches are five in number,
namely : —
First Church in Roxbury July, 1632.
First Church in Charlestown Nov. 2, 1632.
First Church in Dorchester Aug. 23. 1636.
Second Church in Roxbury (West Roxbury) Nov. 2, 1712.
Third Church in Roxbury (Jamaica Plain) Dec. II, 1770.
These five, added to the eleven already enumerated, show the existence
of sixteen Congregational churches, in 1780, upon the territory now em-
braced within the city of Boston. In some lists the First Church in Brigh-
ton is made to date from 1730. But we reckon the year of the formation
of the Old Brighton Church to be 1783. Brighton was anciently a part of
Cambridge, and was called Little Cambridge. A preaching service, more or
less irregular, had been maintained at Little Cambridge from 1730 onward.
But the real organization of the church did not take place till 1783, and we
date from that organic act, and not from the early movements looking in
that direction.
Of the sixteen churches named above, which were in active existence one
hundred years ago upon the present Boston soil, all but two in the early
years of the present century became known as Unitarian. The two remain-
ing Trinitarian were the First Church in Charlestown and the Old South.
As the Unitarian churches of the city will be presented in a separate chapter,
we will not attempt farther to follow their fortunes, but will give our atten-
tion to the two above-mentioned, and those of like faith which have come
into existence during the present century.
After that long period of dulness and decline of which we have spoken,
at length came the time when the religious life of New England set forward
again under new and more favorable auspices. Some of the evils and
hindrances of the former years had worked themselves out to their full end,
and had disappeared. That scheme of church-membership introduced by
the Synod of 1662, and known as the Half-way Covenant, had at length
been abandoned. The ruling elders, who figured so prominently in the
early generations, had taken their departure. The aristocratic features of the
Cambridge Platform, giving such undue power in the government of the
churches to the ministers, had lost their vitality. The union of the Church
with the State was rapidly drawing to a close. The churches, both in city
and country, were losing some of their formal dignity and growing more
and more into the pattern of the New Testament simplicities. The exclu-
siveness of the former days had gone by ; and a fair and open field was
presented to churches of other denominations, giving them substantially the
same rights and privileges which had before been reserved for churches of
the standing order. In due time came the full inauguration of the principle
that religion should be free, — that no person should be taxed for any
•church except at his own pleasure. Changes so radical as these seemed to
THE CONGREGATIONAL (TRINITARIAN) CHURCHES. 405
many of the conservative men of fifty and sixty years ago the giving up of
all that New England had held most dear. But, looking back from the
present, few will deny that our religious condition is far more sound and
healthful in consequence of these changes. This revolution was a growth
from within, rather than a measure forced upon the churches from without.
There never was a time when the churches of the standing order in New
England were forced by outside majorities to change their early policy ;
they yielded rather to the silent pressure of their own underlying principles.
Step by step they advanced logically toward greater liberty and toleration.
With the opening years of the present century other elements, of a differ-
ent type, came into the church life of New England. Then began that great
migratory movement, by which the pent-up population of the Atlantic slopes
and the gathering hosts of the Old World were to be distributed across
this broad continent. A missionary field of the most majestic proportions
opened before the churches of every name and order. Coincident with this
came the Christian impulse to send the blessings of the gospel far abroad
to the nations sitting in darkness. The thoughts of men and women were
thus turned away from themselves and from the little worlds in which
they personally moved to the broad land which God had given them for
an inheritance, and to a wide and waiting world appealing to their Christian
sympathies. The missionary work at home and abroad done by this and
by other lands distinguishes, to an eminent degree, the Christianity of the
present century from the centuries that went before. There is now among
the churches of the New England type less of form and ceremony, less of
dignity and state, less of dogmatic controversy than in the generations past ;
but there is, let us hope, more of the spirit of that great Teacher and Master
who went about doing good. Looking at things in a certain way, it is easy
to conclude that men and women were more religious formerly than now.
There was a far more enforced conformity to religious observances ; but
when we remember that religion is a thing of the heart, and not of the out-
ward form, and that nothing can be truly genuine and worthy in this respect
which does not spring naturally out of a free and willing mind, we may find
some evidence that the real piety of this generation is as good as that of
the past.
Early in the present century began the formation of Sunday-schools
among the churches of this country, — an enterprise which has already grown
into vast proportions. It has called out the benevolence and the working
power of our churches to a very great degree. From year to year this en-
terprise takes on new forms and varieties and methods of work ; but never,
perhaps, has the range of its activity been larger or more healthy than at
present. All these things indicate religious activity, if not religious thought.
The century in which we are living has witnessed an advance in almost
every department of life truly marvellous ; and we believe that the relig-
ious progress during this period will prove as truly great as the revolution
wrought in things outward and material.
406 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Going back then once more to the beginning of the century, and setting
out with the two churches which had come over from the previous genera-
tions, we find that within the limits of the present city of Boston forty-one
Congregational churches have meanwhile sprung into existence. Of these,
twenty-six were on the ancient territory of Boston, and fifteen were in the
several districts which have lately been added to the city. These are as
follows, taking first those on the old territory : —
Park Street, 1809; Union, 1822; Phillips, 1823; Green Street, 1823;
Bowdoin, 1825; Salem Street, 1827; Berkeley, 1827; Mariners, 1830;
Central, 1835; Maverick, 1836; Free Church, 1836; Garden Street, 1840;
Mount Vernon, 1842; Messiah, 1844; Church of the Pilgrims, 1844; Ley-
den, 1844; Payson, 1845; Shawmut, 1845; Edwards, 1849; Church of the
Unity, 1857; Springfield Street, 1860; Oak Place, 1860; E Street, 1860;
Chambers Street, 1861 ; Salem and Mariners, 1866; Olivet, 1876.
Those in the new districts are as follows : —
Second Church, Dorchester, 1808; Brighton, 1827; Village Church,
Dorchester, 1829; Winthrop, Charlestown, 1833; Eliot, Roxbury, 1834;
South Evan., West Roxbury, 1835 ; Bethesda, Charlestown, 1847; Central,
Jamaica Plain, 1853; Immanuel, Roxbury, 1857; Trinity, Neponset, 1859;
Pilgrim, Dorchester, 1862; Highland, Roxbury, 1869; Walnut Avenue,
Roxbury, 1870; Church of Hollanders, Roxbury, 1873; Boylston, Jamaica
Plain, 1879.
In making a brief reference to the men who have occupied the pulpits
of these churches during the century, we shall be obliged to confine our
notices to some of the more conspicuous, who have already passed away.
In making our selection we shall choose indiscriminately from the ancient
Boston, and from those portions recently brought within the city limits.
In 1779, almost at the beginning of the period contemplated in this
chapter, the Rev. Dr. Joseph Eckley was ordained pastor of the Old South
/ x7 Church. He was a native of London, Eng-
&A/K- CS'K'i&jL/ land, and a graduate from the College of
j ' ~^3— — -^ New Jersey. His ministry continued thirty-
two years, until his death in 1811. It was
eminently a transition period among the churches of Boston, and Dr. Eck-
ley to some degree sympathized with the changes going forward, though
not to such an extent as to leave his old theological associations. He was
a man of refined manners and good culture, who fulfilled his ministry in a
troubled and revolutionary period.
In the year 1808 the Rev. Joshua Huntington was settled as his col-
league. He was a man greatly beloved and honored, but his ministry was
cut short in 1819 by his untimely death, at the age of thirty-four.
The Rev. Jedidiah Morse, D.D., was settled over the First Church of
Charlestown in 1789, and continued in office until 1820, when he resigned.
He was one of the marked men of his generation, distinguished by his
pulpit talents and his power as a writer upon religious and doctrinal topics.
THE CONGREGATIONAL (TRINITARIAN) CHURCHES.
407
He has been known also as the father of American geography, and was
deeply interested in all matters scientific and historical. For several years
he was the editor of the Panoplist, and was
prominently connected with the founding of the
Andover Theological Seminary. Great as he
was in himself, he was still more distinguished in his sons, who have filled a
high place in journalism, and in the records of great inventions. He was
a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and of other learned
bodies.
The Rev. Edward Dorr Griffin, D.D., the first pastor of Park-Street
Church, professor of rhetoric in Andover Theological Seminary, and
president of Williams College, im-
Pressed the men of his generation
as a preacher of solid power and
commanding eloquence. His stay
in Boston was brief. His longest
term of office was in the presidency
of Williams College, where he remained from 1821 to 1836. He was
among the leading pulpit orators of his time in New England.
The Rev. John Cod'man, D.D., first pastor of the Second Church in Dor-
chester, remained in office thirty-nine years, till his death. The son of a
wealthy Boston merchant,
he enjoyed more than the
usual opportunities for
education, both at
home and abroad.
Without any thought or forecast at the time of his settlement as to what
would happen, it fell to his lot to open that great strife, in the early years
of the present century, whereby a separation took place between the Con-
gregational churches since known as Unitarian and those that adhered to
the old New England standards of faith. The opening years of his minis-
try were therefore very stirring and eventful. Dr. Codman was a man
strong, solid, and practical, rather than brilliant. Blessed with fortune,
he was able to become a public benefactor in a financial way, and took
delight in imparting of his substance for individual and public good. His
name abides in honor.
The Rev. William Jenks, D.D., more widely distinguished as an author than
as a preacher, was well known in Boston in various connections from 1818
till his death in 1866, at the advanced age of eighty-
eight. His gentlemanly person, his quiet manners,
and his refined taste are well remembered by multi-
tudes in the city. In the later years of his life, as he
sat in the pulpit of the Old South Church on the Sabbath with his ear-
trumpet, his saintly looks and gentle ways acted like a constant benediction
upon the congregation. He was an able and instructive preacher in the
408
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
days of his strength and activity, but was more remarkable for his ripe
learning and his great success in authorship. His Comprehensive Commen-
tary, the fruit of the labor of many years, is said to have had a sale of
120,000 copies. Other works of his, illustrative of the Bible and designed
as helps in its study, have had a large circulation
The stay of Dr. Lyman Beecher in Boston is to be regarded as a kind
of episode in his long, stirring, and eventful life. He was resident here only
from 1826 to 1832. But these were years when he was in the full plenitude
of his strength, — when his intellect was at the best, and his experience
already large. Dr. Beecher, though quaint, odd, and absent-minded, was
not unsymmetrical. He was a man to be trusted with great interests. While
1 [This cut follows a portrait by Baird of by Mrs. Mary Foote Perkins, a daughter of Dr.
Cincinnati, painted about 1843, and now owned Beecher. — ED.)
THE CONGREGATIONAL (TRINITARIAN) CHURCHES. 409
he was pastor in Boston his influence in all the surrounding towns was very
great. As an author, his published writings bear witness to the order and
comprehensiveness of his thought. In short he was not, as some suppose,
simply an impulsive and fiery orator, carrying his points by the sway and
splendor of his rhetoric ; he was a scholar also, — a man of system and
orderly arrangement, working intelligently toward his end. He was unique
to an extraordinary degree.
Fifty years ago the name of the Rev. B. B. Wisner, D.D., was one of the
popular and beloved names of Boston. As pastor of the Old South Church
from 1821 to 1832, and as one of the secretaries of
the American Board from 1832 to his death in 1835,
few men have more thoroughly won public affection
and confidence. Of a fine presence and winning aspect, with an attractive
address and a fluent speech, he was a general favorite with the people.
He passed away at a comparatively early age, at a period when a man
usually begins to take on his full mental vigor and compass. He was
but thirty-nine at the time of his death, but left behind him an excellent
record for culture, activity, and usefulness.
The Old South Church also suffered a severe affliction in the early death
of the pastor immediately succeeding Dr. Wisner, — the Rev. Samuel H.
Stearns. His ministry, begun in 1834, opened with great promise, and the
young pastor was most highly esteemed and loved by his congregation. But
his work was soon cut short by disease. He died after a ministry of only
three years.
One of the early ministers of the church in Brighton was the cele-
brated Dr. William Adams, who after a long and very conspicuous life
has recently passed away by death
in the city of New York. His set-
tlement at Brighton was in 1831,
immediately after leaving the theo-
logical seminary. He had not then learned to use the treasures of his
learning and power. In later years he became one of the foremost clergy-
men in the land. By his stately dignity and eloquence, few men could
more adequately meet the requirements of a great occasion.1
The first pastor of the Salem-Street Church was the Rev. Justin Edwards,
D.D. Before coming to Boston, he had been pastor at Andover for fifteen
years. His pastorate at Boston
was short, because of failing
health ; but after recovering
strength he became a conspic-
uous worker through all the later years of his life in reformatory move-
ments. He was the founder of the American Temperance Society, and
became its secretary. He was actively engaged both as writer and public
debater upon the Sabbath question. An immense number of copies of his
1 [We owe to Dr. Wisner the only history we have of the Old South Church. — ED. J
VOL. in. — 52.
410 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Sabbath Manual, his Temperance Manual, and of other of his works were
circulated among the people. He was for several years the President of the
Andover Theological Seminary.
In 1834 the Rev. Nehemiah Adams, D.D., began his ministry in Essex
Street, as pastor of the Union Church, and from that time until recent
years he has been one of the most marked
men connected with the Boston ministry.
/7/i^y ^ J/tt IS A / ^ conservative tendencies on all questions
i^/ 'JjffUAJ /yJT a&**4 of theology and morals, of strong and abid-
ing will, he was yet a man of such grace of
culture, and such felicity of public address, that his services were always in
full demand so long as his health and strength lasted. He had the delights
and delicacies of literary culture to a most remarkable degree. In the
fitness and aptness of his Scriptural quotations he was well-nigh unsur-
passed. To all these advantages are to be added the comeliness and
beauty of his person, and his calm self-possession in all public duties. He
bore a prominent part in the religious controversies of his day, but took a
greater delight in more quiet authorship. As a public writer he was large
and comprehensive. There is a wide variety in the books which he has left
behind ; but they are all marked by the ever-recurring touches of his pe-
culiar genius.
The first pastor of the Eliot Church, Boston Highlands, was the Rev.
John S. C. Abbott, D.D., a man of quick and versatile genius, and holding
pre-eminently the pen of a ready writer. In
connection with his public labors in the min-
istry in various places he has been prolific in
authorship to a remarkable degree, and his writings have enjoyed a large
popularity. While many have not been able to coincide with some of his
historical judgments, all will concede that there is a peculiar charm spread
over the pages of his books. Few men have gathered about themselves a
greater multitude of readers.
The Rev. Sereno E. Dwight, D.D., the second pastor of Park-Street
Church, was the son of Dr. Timothy Dwight, President of Yale College.
His own abilities, as well as his father's name, caused him to become con-
spicuous in public life during the early years of the present century. As a
preacher and a writer he obtained a good reputation. After leaving Park
Street in 1826, he was for a short period President of Hamilton College,
New York, but was more largely engaged as a writer and author. He pub-
lished several works, of which the most important was the life of his distin-
guished ancestor Jonathan Edwards, which makes the first volume in his
ten-volume edition of Edwards's Works, published in 1830.
The Rev. Joel H. Linsley, D.D., pastor of Park-Street Church at a later
date, was a man of very effective pulpit powers. Not demonstrative, not
aiming at oratorical display, he was often eloquent after the most genuine
fashion. He touched and captivated the heart. Simple and natural in
THE CONGREGATIONAL (TRINITARIAN) CHURCHES. 41 I
his daily life and in all his public addresses, he was a choice and valued
Christian worker in his generation. After leaving Boston he became Presi-
dent of Marietta College, Ohio. His longest ministry was in his later years
at Greenwich, Connecticut, where he died in 1868.
The Rev. Silas Aiken, D.D., successor to Dr. Linsley in the Park-Street
pulpit, was a man different in the habits of his mind and in his constitu-
tional tendencies ; less tender and emotional, but strong, solid, and worthy.
He had not the elements of a strictly
popular preacher ; but he had strength
of understanding, and was a wise, faith-
ful, judicious pastor, — a man to be
honored and trusted. His pastoral care of the church continued for eleven
years, from 1837 to 1848.
The Rev. Amos A. Phelps, connected as pastor with three of the Boston
churches between the years 1832 and 1847, was a man who left behind him
a much greater name than any immediate success would seem to warrant.
The secret of this is to be found probably in the fact that he was a thorough-
going Antislavery advocate at a time when Antislavery sentiments were not
popular in the great cities of the north. Moreover, as an Antislavery man
he did not consort with men of the radical type, but kept himself in strict
alliance with the churches, where at the first he found little sympathy.
As an acute and logical thinker, whose ideas though tardily received were
at length victorious, he has an honor now which he did not enjoy in his
lifetime. He was of a delicate constitution, and passed away at a compar-
atively early age. Few of his contemporaries, however, accomplished more
than he in the cause of truth and righteousness.
Another Congregational minister, who like the preceding was cut off in
the midst of his days, was the Rev. William M. Rogers, the brilliant pastor
of Central Church from 1835 to 1851.
//} . ., For a number of years, while his
. JLcrt^^L
ancj strength were continued,
^ there was no Congregational minister
in Boston who had greater attractive power than he. The Central Church in
those years was one of the places of popular resort. Mr. Rogers was of
a slight figure, with marked nervous energy, and with a style of address
that reached and thoroughly penetrated his hearers. He was averse to
every form of radicalism. He might be called ultra-conservative. But
notwithstanding these seeming drawbacks he had the elements of popularity
in him to a marked degree, and filled a conspicuous place during the short
period of his public activity.
The Rev. Samuel Green, the first pastor of Union Church, was one of
those men of excellent quality and large promise
who are not permitted to continue. After a min-
istry of eleven years in Essex Street he died at
the age of forty-two, greatly beloved and honored. He was a brother of
412 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
the Rev. David Green, so widely known as a wise and able secretary of the
American Board.
The successor of Dr. Lyman Beecher, at the Bowdoin-Street Church,
was the Rev. Hubbard Winslow, D.D., who remained in office from 1832 to
1844. Mr. Winslow was a man of a companionable nature, easily accessi-
ble, and during his, ministry Bowdoin-Street Church was full to overflowing.
For some years no Congregational Church in Boston was more crowded.
Dr. Winslow, though not a great preacher in the highest sense, had the
power of adaptation to the wants of common minds, so that he was a favor-
ite with the people. After leaving the ministry in 1844 he became well
known as a teacher and writer. He published several volumes of a religious
and practical nature which had a good circulation.
The Rev. Edward N. Kirk, D.D., came to Boston in 1842 to be made the
first pastor of the Mount Vernon Church. Previous to his coming hither
_ , he had acquired a wide reputation as an
/7 i£S' / evangelist. He was an accomplished pul-
/L. yiUL^/T
— • pit orator, and wherever he went he was
certain to draw crowds to hear him. He preached the gospel with great
fervor and directness, and in a most winning manner. With a voice clear,
rotund, musical, capable by its range of finding out the most distant hearer ;
with a figure full, graceful, easy of movement, — he had few equals in the
land in making a popular impression. Turning from his life as an evangelist
to become a settled pastor, many thought that he had perhaps made a mis-
take, and that the new enterprise would prove a failure in his hands. But
on coming to Boston Dr. Kirk thoroughly identified himself with every
good word and work. No man among us has been more widely connected
with great evangelical movements, not only near at hand, but throughout
the land and the world. His name has been as familiar almost in England,
France, Germany, and Italy, as in the United States.
The Rev. William Ives Budington, D.D., was settled over the ancient
church of Charlestown in 1840, and remained there fourteen years before
his removal to Brooklyn, New York.
He was a man of finished culture, ~~
of rare mental gifts and moral graces.
As a public speaker, especially in extemporaneous address, he was often ex-
ceedingly felicitous. Wherever he went he was certain to win friends and
draw men of kindred spirit into close companionship with himself. While
in Charlestown he wrote his History of the First Church. The work was
done on so large a plan, and the time covered by the history was so long,
that great labor was involved in the undertaking. It was finished in a
scholarly manner, and remains now as a standard book of reference.
Dr. Budington's successor at Charlestown was the Rev. James B. Miles
D.D., who filled the pastoral office from 1855 to 1871, when he was
dismissed to become secretary of the American Peace Society. In this
connection he made the society known in this land and in foreign lands,
THE CONGREGATIONAL (TRINITARIAN) CHURCHES. 413
in a way in which it had not been known before. For some years Dr.
Miles and the American Peace Society became familiar even in the courts
of Europe. How far this work will abide, how permanent this influence
will prove, we cannot say; but certainly Dr. Miles used his office industri-
ously, and carried his plans of peace and public arbitration in national
affairs into the highest assemblies of the Old World.
The foregoing is a rapid review of some of the men who have stood in
the Congregational pulpits of Boston during the last century. We have
confined the sketch simply to those who are dead. There are many names
among the living worthy of honorable mention.
If all the Congregational churches of Boston previously enumerated
had lived until the present time, in addition to the two ancient churches
already mentioned, we should find to-day within the city limits forty-three
Congregational churches. Instead of this number we find but twenty-
six. Seventeen of the churches enumerated above have died, or have been
merged in others. This is the common fortune of churches of every order
planted in great and growing cities. Changes of the most revolutionary
kind are constantly taking place amid these city populations. The chief
and chosen resorts for quiet residences in one generation become the prin-
cipal centres of noise and traffic in the next. The places where the fathers
most naturally gathered for their public worship are far away from the
homes of the children. And so it happens almost inevitably, in the progress
and growth of cities, that some churches must die while others are born.
To this cause, which is peculiar to cities, we may add others common
alike to city and country. Some churches, wherever they may be, are but
untimely births, growing out of strifes and divisions, or strange idiosyn-
crasies. Persons of discernment, looking on at the time, see that such
churches will be short-lived in the nature of things. They are not born
out of any real want, and have therefore no natural basis of health and
growth.
Whether this church mortality, as we may call it, has been greater
among the Congregationalists of Boston than in other denominations we
have not undertaken to inquire ; but, as before stated, on the territory of
Boston, as it is now bounded, we have to-day twenty-six Congregational
churches in place of the forty-three which would have been found here had
death not invaded their ranks. But no enumeration of this kind can give
any more than a very partial idea of the religious growth of the city during
the last one hundred years. Before the age of railroads the city was the
city, and the country was the country. But now there is a Boston which is
very largely outside even of the enlarged city limits. There is a popula-
414 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
tion of many thousands in the suburban towns — ten, fifteen, twenty miles
away — which in some sense belongs to the city as truly as though it
dwelt within the city enclosure. There are churches representing the vari-
ous denominations which have been formed out of this half city, half coun-
try population. No one can doubt that the churches of Chelsea, of Cam-
bridge, of Newton, of Medford, of Maiden, and divers other towns and
villages depend for their chief strength and support upon men whose busi-
ness life is in the neighboring city. If all the Congregational churches in
these outlying districts which really draw their life from this tributary pop-
ulation could be added to those already enumerated, it would greatly swell
the sum total of what is really to be credited to Boston.
All this history which has thus been briefly summarized will be more
clearly and satisfactorily exhibited in the annexed tables, which will show
the succession of churches and ministers in Boston from 1780 to the present
time. Here it will be easy to trace the churches which have continued un-
til this present time, and those which have died out or been merged in
others.
THE CONGREGATIONAL (TRINITARIAN) CHURCHES.
415
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ROXB
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418
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
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420
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
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BOYLSTON CHURCH,
Feb. 4» 1879-
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BAPTISTS IN BOSTON DURING THE LAST HUNDRED
YEARS.
BY THE REV. HENRY M. KING, D. D.,
Pastor of the Dudley-Street Baptist Church, Roxbury.
hundred years ago there were only two Baptist churches in Boston,
and they were not strong in the number or social influence of their
members. The First Baptist Church had had an existence of one hundred
and fifteen years, having been organized in Charlestown in 1665, and after
so long a period did not number more than one hundred and fifty members.
The Second Baptist Church, subsequently known as the Baldwin-Place
Church, and at the present time bearing the name of the Warren-Avenue
Church, had been formed in 1743, and at the end of forty years had forty-
three members. In 1784 published statistics of the denomination reported
two hundred and one professing Baptists in Boston.
It is not necessary to present at length the reasons for this slowness of
growth, or to give in detail the causes which prevented the views of the
Baptists from taking root more quickly and bringing forth fruit more abun-
dantly. It is enough to say that the soil was preoccupied ; that legislation
was adverse to the introduction or progress of Baptist principles; and that
there was a strong public sentiment in opposition to any religious beliefs or
organizations differing from those of " the standing order."
It should be remarked, however, that open hostility had ceased long be-
fore 1780, and the spirit of religious toleration (that plant of slow growth
and tardy maturity), and even of friendliness, was becoming more and more
prevalent. It had been one hundred and thirty-six years since Mr. Painter
had been publicly whipped at Hingham for refusing to allow his child to be
baptized, and a whole century had passed away since the doors of the meet-
ing-house of the First Baptist Church were nailed up by order of the Gov-
ernor and Council of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, under date of March
8, 1680. Indeed, in 1718, when Rev. Elisha Callender was ordained as pastor
of the First Baptist Church, three Congregational ministers — the Mathers,
father and son, and Rev. John Webb — accepted invitations to be present at
the service. Mr. Callender was a graduate of the College at Cambridge, and
422
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
this fact may not have been without its influence on their minds. Rev.
Cotton Mather preached the sermon on that occasion, choosing for his
theme, " Good Men United." In the sermon he earnestly condemned " the
withdrawal of fellowship from good men," and the disposition to " inflict
uneasy circumstances upon them, under the wretched notion of wJiolcsome
severities ; " he denounced that " cruel wrath," which is " good for nothing
but only to make divisions in Jacob and dispersions in Israel," and followed
his denunciation with the very humble and frank confession, expressive of
his own position and undoubtedly of the changing sentiment of his people,
that " New England also has, in some former times, done something of this
aspect, which would not now be so well approved of; in which, if the
REV. SAMUEL STILLMAN, D.D.
brethren in whose house we are now convened, met with anything too
unbrotherly, they now with satisfaction hear us expressing our dislike of
everything that has looked like persecution in the days that have passed
over us."
The better times had come. The rights of private judgment and personal
conscience in matters of religious faith and worship were quite generally
acknowledged, although laws were still in force which allowed the taxation
of all lands for the support of the town minister, and it was not until 1832
that the last vestige of oppressive legislation was removed from the statute
books of Massachusetts.
THE BAPTISTS IN BOSTON.
423
In 1780 Rev. Samuel Stillman, A.M., was pastor of the First Baptist
Church, having been settled fifteen years before, and Rev. Isaac Skillman,
A.M., had had for seven years the pastoral care of the Second Baptist
Church. Mr. Skillman remained in the pastoral office until 1787. After
the brief ministry and sudden death of Rev. Thomas Gair, the Second
Church secured the services of Rev. Thomas Baldwin in 1790. Under the
ministry of these two eminent preachers, Dr. Stillman and Dr. Baldwin,
whose memory is still gratefully cherished in the denomination, the two
Baptist churches were greatly strengthened and increased. The two hun-
dred and one members of 1784 became four hundred and twenty-five mem-
bers in 1795. The relations between the two churches and their pastors
were of the most fraternal kind. Although the Second Church had gone
out from the First, because the pastor at that time, Rev. Jeremiah Condy,
was thought to be slightly tainted with Arminianism ; and although Dr. Still-
man and Dr. Baldwin sympathized with different political parties in the
exciting discussions at the beginning of the present century, so that on
Thanksgiving and Fast days the congregations were considerably inter-
mingled, and " the Federalists naturally went to Stillman Street and the
Democrats to Baldwin Place," — yet it was an era of unbroken harmony and
prosperity. The favor of God rested upon his servants and their labors.
Dr. Stillman continued to be pastor of the First Church for forty-two
years. He died March 12, 1807, greatly beloved and honored. His fellow
laborer and intimate friend, Dr. Baldwin, preached the sermon at his funeral,
and it is said that " all the members of the society appeared with badges of
mourning, the women with black bonnets and handkerchiefs." Dr. Baldwin
remained pastor of the Second Church thirty-five years. His death occurred
Aug. 29, 1825, and called forth expressions of universal sorrow. "The
bells of the city were tolled, and his funeral, attended by the Governor of the
Commonwealth, by other high officials, both of the State and the city, and
by the clergy of all denominations, was signalized by manifestations of
respect seldom equalled." The following lines have been fittingly used
to portray his character : —
"//i? was a good man. On his open brow
Benignity had -set her brightest seal ;
And though the iron hand of Time might plough
Some furrows there, still you could not but feel,
When looking on him, that the highest weal
Of human kind was to his bosom dear ;
Age did not cloud it, age could not conceal
The beam that shone so pure, so warm, so clear :
Such was the man of God whose memory all revere."
During Dr. Baldwin's ministry the church received such increase that its
wooden house of worship was enlarged in 1797, and in 1810 was removed to
make room for a larger edifice of brick, which was dedicated Jan. I, 1811.
This building, which was vacated by the church on its removal to Warren
424
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Avenue, was purchased by one of Boston's well-known charities, the Bald-
win-Place Home for Little Wanderers.
Under such eminent leadership, crowned with the divine blessing, the
principles held by the Baptists became better known and found intelligent
and conscientious believers, and the size and strength of the denomination
were steadily increased. The First Church, having worshipped for one
hundred and fifty years by the side of what was then called the " mill-pond,"
on the north side of Stillman Street, between Salem and Pond streets (a
second and larger edifice having been built on the same spot during the
period), removed to a new meeting-house situated at the corner of Union
and Hanover streets, in June, 1829. This building it occupied for twenty-
four years, when, in 1853, compelled by the encroachments of business upon
its location, it transferred itself to Somerset Street, where upon a most eligi-
ble site it erected a beautiful sanctuary, whose lofty spire overlooks the city,
and is a conspicuous object to those who approach from the sea. This
building, also, the church at length vacated by reason of the very general
removal of its families to the south end of the city, and in 1877 it united
with the Shawmut-Avenue Baptist Church, worshipping at the corner of
Shawmut Avenue and Rutland Street, the new church taking the name and
inheriting the rich history of the mother church.
Soon after the beginning of the present century the growth of the
denomination began to manifest itself in the springing up of new churches
within the city limits and in the immediate suburbs. The following table of
decades will show the number of churches established, and the order of their
organization. The list includes, in addition to those suburban towns which
have been actually annexed to Boston, those whose inhabitants largely do
business in Boston, and might properly be reckoned in its population, — such
as Brookline and Cambridge. The dates are those of organization : —
FIRST DECADE, — l8oO to l8lO.
First Baptist Church, Charlestown . 1801
Independent (colored) 1805
Charles Street (formerly called the
Third) 1807
SECOND DECADE, — l8lO tO l82O.
First Cambridge 1817
Arlington 1817
THIRD DECADE, — l82O to 1830.
Dudley Street (Roxbury) . '. . . . 1821
Clarendon Street (at first Federal
Street, afterward Rowe Street) . . 1827
Second Cambridge 1827
Brookline 1828
South Baptist (South Boston) . . . 1828
FOURTH DECADE, — 1830 to 1840.
North Baptist (disbanded 1840) . . 1835
First Chelsea 1836
Neponset Avenue (Dorchester) . . 1837
Harvard Street (formerly called Boyl-
ston Street) 1839
Tremont Street (now Union Temple) 1839
FIFTH DECADE, — 1840 to 1850.
Bowdoin Square 1840
Jamaica Plain 1842
Old Cambridge 1844
Union Church (now Union Temple) 1844
High Street (Charlestown, disbanded
1863)
Central Square (East Boston) . . .
Stoughton Street (Dorchester) . .
Tremont (Roxbury, disbanded t866)
Twelfth Church (colored) ....
THE BAPTISTS IN BOSTON.
425
SIXTH DECADE, — 1850 to l86o.
First Mariners' 1851
Bunker Hill (Charlestown) . . . . 1851
Brighton Avenue (Allston) .... 1853
North Cambridge 1854
Shawmut Avenue (united with First
Church) : . 1856
Fourth Street (South Boston) . . . 1858
Cary Avenue (Chelsea) 1859
SEVENTH DECADE, — l86b tO 1870.
Union Temple 1863
Broadway (Cambridge) 1865
EIGHTH DECADE, — 1870 to l88o.
Dearborn Street (Roxbury) . . . 1870
Ruggles Street (Roxbury) .... 1870
Ebenezer (colored) 1871
Winthrop 1871
Tabernacle (Roxbury, disbanded
1877) 1873
Roslindale (West Roxbury) . . . 1874
Charles River (Cambridge) . . . 1876
Day Star (colored) 1876
Revere 1877
Trinity (East Boston) 1878
Union Church (Cambridge, colored) 1879
First German 1879
On the average more than one Baptist church for each two years has
been organized within what may now be called Boston, since the beginning
of the present century. With very few exceptions, these churches still live,
and give abundant promise of growth and yet further multiplication. The
few exceptions are the result not of any defection or surrender of principles,
but of the receding of the tide of population, or a lack of wisdom in the
choice of location. In two or three instances two churches have united
their strength for the accomplishment of a larger work.
The limits of a single chapter will preclude even the briefest outline
of the history and activity of this band of Christian churches of like faith,
and will prevent the mention even of the names of the ministers who, for a
longer or shorter period, have served them in the past, or are filling their
pulpits to-day. But in addition to the names of Dr. Samuel Stillman and
Dr. Thomas Baldwin, already mentioned, there are a few names of Baptist
preachers, who by their special eminence, as well as by their prolonged
service in this city, have been honored no less by other denominations
than by their own. So intimately connected have they been with the pro-
gress of Baptist churches and principles in Boston during the last seventy
years that the omission of their names in the briefest history would be an
unpardonable neglect in the historian.
Rev. Daniel Sharp, D.D., was the second pastor of the Charles-Street
Church. Entering into this official relation in 1812, he remained in it until
his death in 1853, his ministry covering a period of forty-one years. There
are many who still delight to recall " his erect form and noble countenance,
his personal dignity and natural eloquence." His preaching was character-
ized as " lucid, serious, instructive, earnest," and he is said to have been " an
enthusiastic believer in the ethics of Christianity," and to have " attached
special importance to the culture of the moral virtues as the fruits of a gen-
uine faith." His pulpit was one of great attractiveness and power, and he
gave himself freely to every noble reform and every great denominational
enterprise.
Rev. Baron Stow, D.D., began his ministry in Boston in 1832. For six-
VOL. in. — 54.
426 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
teen years he was pastor of the Second or Baldwin-Place Church, and then
for nineteen years the pastor of the Rowe Street, now the Clarendon-Street
Church. He was " eminent as a Christian, a philanthropist, and a preacher,"
and " to every post of duty and labor he brought a sound judgment, an
earnest purpose, a prayerful and conciliatory spirit." His preaching was
thoroughly scriptural, with the doctrinal and practical judiciously united,
and, when he was in the vigor of his manhood, was characterized by a kind-
ling eloquence, which made him one of the most popular pulpit orators of
his time. His wisdom and zeal were felt in every department of Christian
labor.
Rev. Rollin Heber Neale, D.D., was called to the First Church in 1837,
and held the position of pastor until 1877, when, no longer able to bear the
burdens of the active ministry, he resigned his official relation with the
church, but continued in its endeared fellowship until his death in Septem-
ber, 1879. Endowed with superior mental gifts, with largeness of heart
and catholicity of spirit, he stood for forty years at his important post, the
trusted pastor, the eloquent preacher, the friend of all good causes; and
thus with a hand of love he wrote the long story of his ministerial fidelity,
and died sincerely esteemed and greatly beloved by all who knew him.
Rev. Francis Wayland, D.D., who during a presidency of twenty-five
years at Brown University acquired a renown as an educator second to that
of no one in New England, was, for five years previous to his connection
with the college, pastor of the First Baptist Church in this city. Though his
pastorate of the church was brief, he added strength to the denominational
life and to the whole religious life of Boston, and the glory of his name still
lingers about the pulpit of the old church which he served.
The names of Rev. James M. Winchell, called " the beloved Winchell ; "
of Rev. Bela Jacobs, the early and life-long friend of Newton Theological
Institution ; of Rev. James D. Knowles, the accomplished Christian gentle-
man and scholar, who went from the pulpit of the Baldwin-Place Church to
a Professor's chair at Newton ; of Rev. Henry Jackson. D.D. ; of Rev.
Howard Malcom, D.D. ; of Rev. Robert W. Cushman, D.D. ; and of Rev.
Sumner R. Mason, D.D., — all of whom were able expounders of the Word
and faithful ministers of their respective churches, — are as familiar to Bap-
tists as household words.
These men and others not less worthy of mention, the living and the
dead, — and not only clergymen, but distinguished laymen not a few, — have
toiled and prayed and sacrificed for the advancement of the great central
truths of the Christian faith which they believed essential to the welfare of
society and the salvation of men, and for the defence of those particular
views which, accepting the Word of God as of supreme authority in matters
of religious belief and practice, they have conscientiously held.
In the year 1780 the two Baptist churches in Boston were connected
with the Warren Association, — an association of Baptist churches formed
at Warren, R. I. in 1767, and embracing " all but five of the regular Baptist
THE BAPTISTS IN BOSTON. 427
churches in Rhode Island, all in eastern Massachusetts, and several in the
southern part of New Hampshire." In 1811 this association, covering so
much territory, contained sixty churches. In that year it was voted by
delegates from the churches in eastern Massachusetts to form the Boston
Association. At its first session in 1812 twenty-four churches were rep-
resented, ranging from Templeton, Mass., to New Boston, N. H., from
Newton -to Haverhill and Marblehead. As the churches increased in
number, the more distant ones dropped off to form new associations, —
the Worcester, the Old Colony, the Salem, etc.; until in 1848 the Bos-
ton Association was again divided into the Boston North and the Boston
South, the dividing line going through the heart of the city. These two
associations, covering a circle of territory with Boston as a centre, and a
radius of eight or ten miles, now contain seventy-nine churches with an
aggregate membership of 19,028. The two little Boston churches, organized
prior to 1780, are found at the expiration of the century to have been mul-
tiplied by thirty-nine and a half in number, and by one hundred in respect
to members. Or, if we confine our view to the actual limits of Boston to-
day, the increase has been more than fifty-fold. The larger estimate of
increase — namely, one hundred-fold, which it is certainly fair to accept —
is perhaps a little in excess of the rate of increase which the denomination
has had in the whole country during the last hundred years. There could
hardly have been more than 25,000 Baptists in the United States in 1780,
according to the most generous estimate; and the statistics of 1880 repre-
sent the denomination of regular Baptists as numbering 2,296,327 members.
It may be hoped that the Baptist churches in Boston give evidence of a
corresponding increase in culture, wealth, social influence, moral and spirit-
ual life ; in fact, in everything which goes to make up the power and adds
to the efficiency of a church of Christ.
To estimate properly the progress of a religious denomination it is not
enough to consider the mere multiplication of numbers, for great numbers
may sometimes be an element of weakness rather than of strength, and
increasing proportions may be no certain indication of a larger spiritual life.
The progress of a denomination is seen especially, first, in the progress of
the principles for which it stands ; and, secondly, in the nature of the enter-
prises which it inaugurates and carries forward. With reference to the first
point, this is not, of course, the proper place for any discussion. It will be
sufficient to say that the Baptists of Boston, as elsewhere and always, have
been the earnest advocates of religious liberty, — meaning thereby freedom
of conscience, the unquestioned right of private judgment, and the separation
of Church and State, — and also of a regenerated church-membership which
is a vital part of their polity ; and that they have borne no inconsiderable
part in securing the more general acceptance of these principles among
Christian citizens. It will be well, however, to look briefly at the second point,
and consider the character of some of the enterprises which have engaged
the attention of Boston Baptists, as indicative of their progressive spirit.
428 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Previous to 1800 the Baptists of this country had done little or nothing
to extend the knowledge of Christianity beyond their own borders. In this
respect, however, they did not differ from other denominations of Christians.
It was not until 1810 that the American Board of Commissioners for For-
eign Missions, the first and largest of American missionary societies, was
organized. The Baptists were few in number, for the most part in humble
circumstances, and oppressed with disabilities, so that their little available
strength was largely consumed for home support and advancement. A few
scattered contributions had been forwarded to Rev. Dr. Carey, the pioneer
missionary of the English Baptists at Serampore. In 1806 and 1807 he
acknowledged the receipt of six thousand dollars from America. Another
has said that the Baptists of America " were waiting for that Providential
touch, as of the rod of Moses on the rock in 'Horeb, to which the gushing
waters would come." That Providential touch was felt in the conversion of
the Judsons to Baptist views, and their appeal from the distant East to those
whose faith they had been led to adopt, to come to their support. When
the ship "Tartar" arrived at Boston in January, 1813, bringing the unex-
pected tidings from the Judsons, and like unexpected tidings from Rev.
Luther Rice, — who had been ordained at the same time with Mr. Judson, had
sailed for India under appointment of the American Board in another ship,
and had also become a Baptist during the voyage by the independent study
of the Scriptures, — it was looked upon as a divine call summoning the people
to immediate and united action. Boston welcomed the call and responded
with alacrity in the formation of " The Baptist Society for Propagating the
Gospel in India and other Foreign Parts," of which Thomas Baldwin and
Daniel Sharp were chosen president and secretary. Other societies were
formed at other centres, and all were united in 1814 in the "General Mis-
sionary Convention " for prosecuting the work of foreign missions. Rev.
Adoniram Judson, Jr., was formally appointed their first missionary, and the
denomination entered upon its sublime work of faith, and took the first step
in obedience to the great commission of its risen Lord. The Convention
was to meet once in three years, and the board at first had its seat in Phila-
delphia. At the fourth meeting, however, measures were instituted which
resulted, in 1826, in the transfer of the seat of management to Boston.
The Baptists here accepted the solemn trust, and for fifty-four years have
administered it with distinguishing wisdom and fidelity. The American
Baptist Missionary Union, the name by which the society is now known, is,
indeed, almost a national society, receiving its support from States east,
north, and west, and expending during the past year $290,000 in its work ;
yet its support and its prosperity have been dependent in no small de-
gree upon the fostering care and generous sympathies of the men and the
churches to whose immediate supervision its interests have been committed.
They have not only given to it their wisdom in the direction of its operations,
but again and again in times of emergency have taken its burdens and made
them their own, accepting them as from the Lord, and bearing them cheerfully
THE BAPTISTS IN BOSTON. 429
for His name's sake. They have been abundantly compensated, not only by
the consciousness of duty done, but by the enlargement and success of the
work, there being now 162 American Baptist missionaries laboring under
the direction of the Missionary Union, and 1,052 native preachers, and
85,308 living members of organized churches.
Another object in which the Baptists of Boston have been especially
interested during the present century, has been the work of ministerial
education. The first quarter of the nineteenth century was distinguished by
the activity of Christians of different names in this country in making
provision for an educated ministry. In 1808 the Theological Seminary
in Andover, Mass., was founded ; in 1810 the Theological Seminary
of the Dutch Reformed Church in New Brunswick, N. J.; in 1812 the
Theological Seminary in Princeton, N. J. ; and in 1814 the Theological
Seminary in Bangor, Me. The Baptists caught the spirit of the time, and,
acknowledging the necessity of special training for those who were to be the
spiritual guides of the people and the leaders of religious thought, moved
forward to meet it. It is, indeed, true, in the language of Rev. Dr. Sprague,
that " The Baptists, as a denomination, have always attached little import-
ance to human learning as a qualification for the ministry, in comparison
with those higher, though not miraculous, spiritual gifts which they believe
it the province of the Holy Ghost to impart; and some of them, it must be
acknowledged, have gone to the extreme of looking upon high intellectual
culture in a minister as rather a hindrance than a help to the success of his
labors." l He very justly adds, however, " The Baptists have had less credit
as the friends and patrons of learning than they have deserved."
The First Baptist Church in Boston was compelled to select its first pastors
from such material as it had at hand, generally choosing some godly man
from its own number. Such were Thomas Gould, John Russell, Isaac Hull,
and Ellis Callender. The second pastor, John Russell, was a shoemaker by
trade, and probably, like the Apostle Paul, thought it an honor, and also
found it a necessity, to work at his trade after entering the ministry. He is
described as " a wise and worthy man," who, making no pretensions to
scholarship, " plainly spoke what he did know." His humble calling and
meagre preparation for the ministry were sometimes made subjects for ridi-
cule by his educated neighbors, and he was exhorted to " stick to his last."
Having written an account of the trials of his church, and been so unwise as
to venture into print with it, it was spoken of as a pamphlet which " a
wedder-dropped shoemaker had stitched up." A Mr. Willard moralized
sagely in this way: " Truly, if Goodman Russell be a fit man for a minister,
we have but fooled ourselves in building colleges and instructing children in
learning."
When, however, the church had it in its power to secure for its pulpit
those who had enjoyed larger advantages, it was not slow to do it. Its sixth
and seventh pastors were Elisha Callender and Jeremiah Condy, both of
1 Historical Introduction to Annals of American Baptist Pulpit, p. xv.
430 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
whom were graduates of Harvard College. They served the church from
1718 to 1764. The eighth pastor was Dr. Stillman, who "had received
a good classical education, and studied theology under his pastor, the Rev.
Mr. Hart," of Charleston, S. C. This method, namely, of private study
with some prominent pastor, was often resorted to, even after graduation
from college, for special theological training. It was the best method
possible at the time, but was felt to be utterly inadequate. In 1814, at the
third annual meeting of the Boston Association of Baptist churches, there
was formed the Massachusetts Baptist Education Society, having for its
object the preparation of a ministry more thoroughly qualified for its great
work. This society, having changed its name to " The Northern Baptist
Education Society," is still in active operation, having rendered a service of
incalculable value to the churches.
Out of that educational movement begun in 1814 grew first the " Maine
Literary and Theological Institution," planted in 1817 at Waterville, Me.
It was subsequently called Waterville College, and more recently it has borne
the name of Colby University, in honor of the late Gardner Colby, Esq., a
successful Boston merchant, by whose donations its endowment has been
greatly increased.
As a second direct result of that educational movement, there was
founded, in 1825, the Newton Theological Institution, situated in Newton
Centre, seven miles from Boston. This institution does not, indeed, belong
exclusively to the Baptists of Boston, or even of Massachusetts. It has had
generous friends in all parts of New England, who have contributed to its
funds and promoted its prosperity. But it is not too much to say that by
far the larger part of its endowment has been contributed, even as the heavy
burdens of its foundation were borne, by its friends in Boston and its imme-
diate vicinity. The names of four laymen are mentioned 1 as especially
connected with the establishment of this school of sacred learning; namely,
Ensign Lincoln, of the well remembered publishing house of Lincoln and
Edmands ; Nathaniel R. Cobb, a conscientious Christian merchant, who
at the beginning of his business career solemnly adopted a plan of be-
nevolence beginning with these words, " By the grace of God, I will never
be worth more than $50,000 ; " Levi Farwell, who for nine years was
steward of Harvard College ; and Jonathan Batcheller, of Lynn, a man of
whom it has been said that he " spent little on himself, and put much into
the treasury of the Lord." Three of these friends of the institution con-
tributed to its funds in the aggregate nearly sixty thousand dollars, at a time
when large gifts were few, and the wealth of the denomination was small.
Boston has furnished worthy successors of these liberal men, who have as-
sisted in increasing the assets of the institution to $450,000. The Board
of Trustees has been presided over for forty-five years by the following
persons in succession : Rev. Daniel Sharp, D.D., Rev. Baron Stow, D.D.,
1 Historical Address by President Alvah Hovey, D.D., at the Fiftieth Anniversary of Newton
Theological Institution.
THE BAPTISTS IN BOSTON. 431
Gardner Colby, Esq., and Hon. J. Warren Merrill. The prosperity and
present efficiency of this honored school of the denomination are due in
no small degree to the wisdom and generosity of its representatives in
Boston and vicinity.
It is not necessary to speak of the general activities of the Baptist
churches in this city, or the numerous channels through which their ever
increasing life has flowed. Those channels have been such as the life of
spiritual religion will ever make for itself, and the forms of service have
been such as are everywhere born of the genius of the gospel of Christ.
The important work of Christian benevolence and home evangelization, in
all its departments, has enlisted the practical sympathies of these churches.
They have reached out the hand of help to the destitute and the oppressed
of every name, — the unfortunate, the inebriate, the struggling pioneer of the
West, the unenlightened freedman of the South, the mariner who lands at our
port, and the immigrant who seeks a home on our shores. They have in-
culcated by precept and example those principles of righteousness on which
the peace and good morals of society depend. They have earnestly pro-
claimed those fundamental truths of Christianity which are the basis of the
highest morality as well as of immortal hope ; assured that if men are made
true citizens of God's spiritual kingdom, they cannot fail to be virtuous,
peace-loving, law-abiding citizens under human government. In seeking to
serve God devotedly, they have rendered the best service to the city and the
Commonwealth. That the work of these churches has been marred by
much weakness and imperfection is, alas ! too true ; but it is hoped that they
have been sufficiently true to their holy faith to show some resemblance
to the apostolic model, and to assist in promoting the public weal.
There are two enterprises which the Baptists have put in successful
operation in this city, which may perhaps be called Baptist " notions." The
Tremont Temple enterprise, in its present large proportions, grew out of a
determination to establish a free church in Boston, — a church where " all
persons, whether rich or poor, without distinction of color or condition,"
could be free to enjoy the public ministry of the gospel. The prime mover
in the enterprise was Timothy Gilbert, a man of strong character and posi-
tive convictions, who may be said to have been born a reformer, and who so
earnestly identified himself with the Antislavery movement, that he won to
himself from the lips of a slave-hunter the title, " the grandest abolitionist
in Boston'' The church was organized in 1839 under the name of the First
Free Church. After worshipping in various places, the Tremont Theatre, a
large building opposite the Tremont House, was purchased and fitted up as
a place of worship. Mr. Gilbert found, in Rev. Nathaniel Colver, D.D., the
first pastor of the church, a man of like spirit with himself, of tremendous
energy, and without fear, who " snuffed the battle from afar," and generally
succeeded in bringing it near. He remained as pastor twelve years. The
property was burned in 1853, and immediately restored. The church find-
ing itself unable to carry so large a property, an act of incorporation was
432 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
secured in 1857 for a society known as the Evangelical Baptist Benevolent
and Missionary Society, which, composed of corporate members and dele-
gates from the Baptist churches of the city, holds the property for the
benefit of the free church worshipping in it, and is to devote whatever
income may at any time be derived from it to benevolent and missionary
work in the city. The building, which is centrally located, has become, in
accordance with the noble design of the founder of the enterprise, " the
Stranger's Sabbath Home." It has been made also the headquarters of the
various denominational societies located in Boston. It was again destroyed
by fire in August, 1879, and has been rebuilt during the year, and now con-
tains one of the most complete and elegant auditories in the city.
The Baptist Social Union of Boston is an association of laymen, formed
in 1864, for the purpose of a more intimate acquaintance between members
of the different churches, and for the consideration of topics of common
practical interest. Its meetings are held monthly, and have uniformly been
sources of great enjoyment and profit. This union has done much to pre-
serve the unity and fellowship of the churches, and to stimulate their active
benevolence, and guide it in wise directions. Its growth and prosperity for
the sixteen years of its existence contain the promise of permanent useful-
ness. Other unions, similar to this, with perhaps slight modifications, have
been formed in other cities and in other denominations ; but to the Baptist
Social Union of Boston belongs the honor of being the parent of them all.
Such is the shadowy outline of a history which has been full of earnest
toil, patient and willing sacrifice, and heroic achievement. These churches,
holding firmly to the supreme authority of the Word of God, and with
equal firmness to the independence of the individual church, and the freedom
of the individual conscience, acknowledging allegiance to no creed of human
origin however venerable, and bound together only by the gossamer threads
of voluntary association, have remained throughout the century substantially
one with themselves, and one with their historic faith. Not one of them has
departed from the common faith, or broken with its fellows. Grateful to
God for the harmony and progress of the past, they anticipate the future
with unwavering faith in the truths which the fathers held, in the Christ
whom the fathers honored, and in the ultimate triumph of that kingdom
which is " righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."
Csis^y ) (OA^.*}.
CHAPTER IX.
THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH: ITS ORIGIN,
GROWTH, AND OFFSHOOTS IN SUFFOLK COUNTY.
BY THE REV. DANIEL DORCHESTER, D.D.
"Taedet me populi hujusce <j>i\o£fvov, ita me urbanitate sua divexant et persequuntur. Non
patiuntur me esse solum. E rure veniunt invisentes clerici ; me revertentes in rus trahunt.
Cogor hanc Angliam contemplari, etiam antiqua amoeniorem ; et nequeo non exclamare, O
fortunata regio ! " — From a letter -written in Boston, Oct. 5, 1736, by the Rev. Charles Wesley to his
brother John, then in Savannah, Ga.
'""T*HE War of Independence divides the history of the original Church
-*• of England communion in Boston, as in all the older portions of
the country, into two strongly contrasted periods. Before that event all
American Episcopalians were under the jurisdiction of an English bishop,
and were considered an integral part of the National Church. Even the
lay preachers sent over by John Wesley, while they carried the gospel into
many localities where the Church of England had no preachers, and gath-
ered into religious societies multitudes of converts who were of dissenting
or even foreign birth, were still so loyal to their mother that, as late as the
year 1773, on holding their first conference in Philadelphia, the entire
number present (ten) agreed to the following rules, to wit: —
First, that each would " Strictly avoid administering the ordinances of Baptism
and the Lord's Supper;" and, secondly, that they would "Earnestly exhort all the
people among whom they labored, — particularly in Maryland and Virginia, — to
attend the Church and to receive the ordinances there"
The outbreak of the war was naturally more disorganizing to this com-
munion than to any of the others. It being the duty of every rector publicly
to pray for the king and the royal family, the continuance of public worship
according to the Book of Common Prayer was impossible. In this state
of things the majority of the Episcopal clergy esteemed it alike their duty
and interest to flee the country, where they could only be objects of pop-
ular suspicion or hate, and wait the further unfoldments of Providence.
The war over, and its issue irrevocably sealed by the treaty which ac-
VOL. m. — 55.
434 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
knowledged the independence of the American States, the necessity for
ecclesiastical re-organization was forced upon the communicants and min-
isters still attached to the Episcopal order and to the forms of the Anglican
Church.
Two independent American churches were the result, to wit : the
Methodist Episcopal Church, organized in 1784, and the Protestant Epis-
copal Church, organized in 1789. Each was constituted after the Anglican
model, with a ministry including bishops, presbyters, and deacons; each
adopted, with modifications, the Articles of Religion of the Church of
England and the ritual contained in the Book of Common Prayer. The
more patriotic and religiously-aggressive elements of the old communion,
strengthened by large accessions won by the lay-ministry before and dur-
ing the war, crystallized into the earlier of the two new churches ; the
more conservative, wealthy, and tradition-loving elements into the latter.
If the modifications embodied in the recension of the Thirty- nine Articles
and the Prayer-book adopted by the Methodist Episcopal Church are more
in the interest of doctrinal and liturgical freedom than those secured by the
Protestant Episcopal Church, the history of the time, and particularly the
history of King's Chapel, Boston, and Dr. White's Proposed Prayer-Book,
shows that the fault was in the English bishops and not in the constituents
of the new organization. Both churches are the natural and filial repre-
sentatives of the Anglican mother; and, taken together, undoubtedly con-
stitute a more important factor in the religious life of the country than ever
that mother did in the period of colonial dependency.
The " Holy Club " of the University of Oxford was formed in the au-
tumn of 1729. Seven years later, on Sept. 24, 1736, one of the most distin-
guished of its original members, the Rev. Charles Wesley, landed in Boston.
At that time Mr. Wesley was a missionary to Georgia and secretary to the
governor of the colony, General Oglethorpe. Being in somewhat impaired
health, he was commissioned by the governor to bear important dispatches
to the home government in London. In consequence of the unseaworthy
condition of the ship on which he embarked, the captain put in at the port
of Boston ; and thus the visit of the man who may be called the first
Methodist Episcopal clergyman who ever preached in this city, was unfore-
seen and involuntary. Though quite ill, Mr. Wesley preached in King's
Chapel and in Christ Church, received visits from various suburban clergy-
men, and celebrated, in a lively letter to his brother, both the remarkable
hospitality of the people and the beauty of the adjacent country. He
re-embarked for England October 25, the same year.
Four years later another member of the same club of Oxford Methodists,
George Whitefield, a priest of the Church of England, and therefore en-
titled to be called a Methodist Episcopalian, appeared in Boston. The story
of his sojourn has been told in the second volume of this History. Twenty
thousand people heard his farewell sermon on the Common, where fifty
years later, under the preaching of Jesse Lee, another Methodist Episco-
THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 435
palian, the permanent planting of Methodism was effected. In his advent
and in his departure he was a common sharer 1 with the Wesleys in what-
ever opprobrium was then attached to the name of Methodist.
From this date until his death, in 1770, this second Methodist Episcopal
minister — the forerunner of the Methodist Episcopal Church — was an
important element in the religious history of Boston. He visited the town
again and again, as the reader has seen. His labors here, as elsewhere, in
his grand itinerations, were preparing the way for those heroic successors
who have made the planting and growth of the Methodist Episcopal Church
a marvel to students of American church history.
In the same storms through which Whitefield was borne on his final
passage to America, the Revs. Richard Boardman and Joseph Pillmore, the
first preachers sent by Wesley, were tossed on their tempestuous voyage.
Boardman — the first superintendent of Wesley's missionaries to our shores,
a man of strong understanding and amiable spirit — came to Boston in
May, 1772. A place of worship was obtained, converts made, and a society
organized ; but it did not long exist. The political excitements of those
pre-Revoiutionary years embarrassed religious movements. By inflaming
the people, they supplanted religious thought and action.
In the autumn of 1784, the Rev. William Black, " an English Wesleyan
preacher, eminent for talents and character," preached a few times in Bos-
ton. After a visit to the Conference in Baltimore, he returned and resumed
his labors here. Denied access to the pulpits, he preached in a chamber at
the North End ; then in a chamber at the South End. At both places the
floors settled under the crowd, and occasioned alarm. Then he preached
in Dr. Stillman's (Baptist) church; then in the North Latin School-house;
then in the Sandemanian Chapel ; and finally, on his last Sabbath, in the
New North Church of the estimable Dr. Eliot. Arrangements made for a
successor failed, and the converts joined other churches.
In 1787 the Rev. Freeborn Garretson, fresh from the founding of Method-
ism in Halifax, N. S., passed through Boston. He found some who had
been members of the society formed by Boardman fifteen years before.
After preaching several times in private houses, he left, purposing to return
the following year. Detained, however, by the rapidly-spreading work in the
Middle States, he did not come again until 1790. A descendant from an
old Maryland family, connected by marriage with the Chancellor Livingston
family of New York, a slaveholder and man of affairs, on his conversion to
Methodism, he emancipated his slaves for Christ's sake, and became a con-
spicuous leader in the itinerant hosts. Cherishing his interest in Boston,
while superintendent of the rising societies on the Hudson, he visited this
town, and on Sunday evening, July 4, preached in the church formerly
occupied by Dr. Mather. Engaging a place for future services, he went to
Providence, meeting on his way one destined to achieve the distinction of
1 Whitefield was then in full sympathy with the Wesleys. His break with them on account of
Calvinism occurred after this visit to Boston.
436 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
organizing the first permanent Methodist Episcopal churches in Boston and
New England.
Ten miles from Providence the two itinerants, habited in the simplicity of
their order, with those invariable symbols the now obsolete saddle-bags,
unexpectedly and joyfully met. The one reports his reconnoitring tour,
and hastens on to his immense district on the Hudson; and the other un-
folds his plans, and advances to the metropolis of the old Puritan common-
wealth.
It was beneath the famous Elm which until lately was a conspicuous
object on our Common, that, at six o'clock on Sunday evening, July 11,
1790, upon a rude table, a man of powerful frame and of "serene but
shrewd countenance " took his stand. Four persons approached, and curi-
ously gazed while he sang. Kneeling, he prayed with a fervor unknown in
the Puritan pulpits, attracting crowds of promenaders from the shady walks.
Three thousand persons drank in his flowing thoughts, as from a pocket-
Bible, " without notes," he proclaimed a free salvation. At first senten-
tiously, then with a variety of beautiful images, then with broad discussion,
then with tender pathos, he moved the thronging crowd. " It was agreed,"
said one who heard him, " that such a man had not visited New England
since the days of Whitefield. I heard him again, and thought I could fol-
low him to the ends of the earth." Such was the Rev. Jesse Lee's first
appearance before a Boston gathering.
The peculiar effect of early Methodist preaching was not, however,
wholly due either to the eloquence, or the manner, or the spiritual power
of the preachers. It was largely owing to the adaptation of the religious
views which they presented to existing conditions in the minds of their
hearers. Said an eminent Congregational divine : —
" There was evidently an aptitude in the public mind to receive the Methodist
faith and form of worship. Nor is it difficult to show how this came about. Old
Orthodoxy, tinctured with Arminianism, and cooled down to a lukewarm temperature
in its delivery from the desk, had become the characteristic of Sabbath-day instruc-
tions in many pulpits, as it had been prior to the Great Awakening in 1 740 ; and
nothing could have been more favorable to the success of an earnest, loud- spoken
ministry. In his doctrinal teaching Jesse Lee, the pioneer of that denomination in
these parts, suited such as were of Arminian tendencies ; in his fervent style of ad-
dress he was acceptable to many warm-hearted Calvinists tired of dull preaching.
What with both of these adaptations to the wants of the people, no wonder that
Methodism had a rapid growth. Something of the kind was inevitable. The wild
enthusiasm of the Quakers had long since disappeared, and their numbers were
diminishing. The martyr spirit which animated the first generation of Baptists had
subsided with the removal of their civil disabilities, and their religious zeal suffered a
proportional decline. If Jesse Lee had not come into Massachusetts, some one else,
pressed in spirit, like Paul at Athens ' when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry,'
would have found utterance, and would have had followers." 1
1 Historical Sketch of the Congregational Churches in Massachusetts, by the Rev. Joseph S.
Clark, D.D., pp. 226, 227.
THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
437
Jesse Lee was a man of uncommon colloquial gifts, with a fascinating
address and ready wit. His rare physical, intellectual, and spiritual powers
were united with
" An unconquerable will,
And courage never to submit or yield."
A scion of an old Virginia family, early trained in the Episcopal Church, a
zealous convert to Wesleyanism, he went forth as an itinerant and founded
societies from Florida to New Brunswick. At the age of thirty-one he was
commissioned to establish on the soil of the Puritans the Methodist Epis-
copal Church, — the first religious body which had effected a national
organization in the United States. The following year he reached Boston,
and halted not until he saw this denomination established in all the East-
ern States.
During the week after he preached on the Common, Lee visited Lynn,
Salem, Newburyport, and Portsmouth, and returned to Boston. On the
next Sunday, being still excluded from the churches, he preached again on
the Common to 3,000 persons; during the week in private houses, and once
in a vacant Baptist church ; and, on the third Sunday, again on the Com-
mon to 5,000 persons. Then he returned to his widely extended field in
Rhode Island and Connecticut.
On the 1 3th of November he was again in Boston. The weather was
cold, shutting him out of his leafy temple, and the hearts of the people
were colder still. Then commenced a series of labors, struggles, defeats,
and reverses, which would have made a less indomitable spirit quail. This
princely man, pronounced by Dr. Thomas Coke to be " one of the ablest
preachers he had ever heard in Europe or America," who preached the gos-
pel from the St. Mary's to the St. John's with a success unequalled since
the days of Whitefield, and who was an acceptable chaplain to Congress for
several years, received no notice from any Boston minister, nor was allowed
access to any audience room. Months passed, almost two years, with oc-
casional visits and close inquiry. Meanwhile, though unsuccessful, he was
still intent. Societies were formed in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont,
Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Lynn opened her doors and her heart,
organized a church and erected a chapel ; but Boston remained closed.
Then preachers from Lynn, under Lee's superintendence, visited Boston,
and the sterile soil began to yield fruit.
On July 13, 1792, the first Methodist class was formed in Boston, at the
house of Mr. Samuel Burrill, on Sheafe Street, at the North End. Fifteen
members were soon after reported to the Conference, and the Rev. Jeremiah
Cosden was appointed preacher. A gentleman of fortune and educated
for the bar, he left the law for the gospel, and abandoned the courts to be-
come an itinerant. A school-house at the North End was the first place
of worship; then an "upper room" in the house of Mr. John Ruddock,
corner of Harris and Ann (now North) streets. Here the apostolic Asbury
438 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
preached, complaining of the incommodiousness of the place, and of the
noise of the " Jack Tars and boys " outside.
In 1793 the Rev. Amos G. Thompson was the preacher; in 1794 the
Rev. Christopher Spry; in 1795 the Rev. John Harper, late from the West
Indies, and father of Chancellor Harper, of South Carolina.
On August 28, 1795, the corner-stone of the first Methodist Episcopal
church was laid by the Rev. Jesse Lee. The house went slowly up, and
was dedicated May 15, 1796, the sermon being given by the Rev. George
Pickering. It was situated in Ingraham's Yard, subsequently Methodist
Alley, now Hanover Avenue. This was then a very respectable locality.
Dr. Eliot's New Brick Church was only two hundred feet distant, and Ann
'Street and other adjacent streets were occupied by the residences of people
of the higher social rank. This first edifice was a small, plain building
measuring thirty-six by forty-six feet, rough and unfinished within, and
benches without backs served for pews. Even in this condition it was
heavily encumbered with debt, for the forty members were all poor. In
this state it was occupied until 1800, when through the assistance of Lee in
the Middle States, and with a little help from the clergy and citizens of
Boston, it was completed. But the struggle was hard ; and even when
finished the house was severely plain. The alley then had no side-walks.
The main floor was two steps above the street, and the outside door opened
directly into the aisles, and to the right and left stairs led into the galleries,
one of which was occupied by males and the other by females. A stove
stood in front of the altar. Opposite the pulpit were the singers' seats, —
and the old church was famous for good singing. Here the society wor-
shipped until the erection of the more spacious edifice on Bennet Street,
when the old church was occupied by the Boston Port Society, until the
Seaman's Bethel in the North Square was completed, in which the Rev.
Edward T. Taylor exercised his wonderful ministry.
The early worshippers in the Methodist Alley Church suffered many
petty annoyances. Rude disturbers of their worship were thought to have
been incited to unmanly acts by others who screened themselves. At last
legal protection was secured through the influence of Mr. William W. Mot-
ley, a gentleman of culture, who had become a Methodist.
The good influence of this church was widely felt at the North End.
From 1796 to 1828 it was a centre of moral light and heat. The voices of
all the eminent ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church were heard
there. Bishops Asbury, George, and McKendree, Revs. George Pickering,
John Broadhead, Daniel Ostrander, Thomas F. Sargeant, Peter Jayne,
Samuel Merwin, Daniel Webb, Martin Ruter, D.D., Elijah Hedding, D.D.,
Enoch Mudge, Timothy Merritt, and President Wilbur Fisk, D.D., are
some of the notable ones. The Rev. John Newland Maffitt preached in
this house to crowded audiences, many persons climbing in at the windows
to hear him. Among the laymen of the earlier period were Samuel Burrill,
Thomas Green, Elijah Phinney Lewis, Uriah Tufts, Jacob Hawkins, Samuel
THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 439
Mills, Abram Ingersol, James Johnson, Colonel Amos Binney, and William
W. Motley.
At the end of fourteen years the membership of the church was two hun-
dred and fifty-seven, and it was resolved (March 3, 1806) to erect another
chapel in another part of the city. On the iQth of November following the
Bromfield-Street Church was dedicated, the sermon being delivered by
the Rev. Samuel Merwin. Its foundations contained a block of hewn stone
from Plymouth Rock, which is still there. Was it a symbol of the engraft-
ing of the Methodist bough into the stock of the old New-England order,
or of the absorption of that into the larger life and growth of Methodism?
The erection of this edifice was a bold movement, and purely aggressive.
Those who undertook it were only just relieved from the heavy embarrass-
ments occasioned by the completion of the Alley church. But the new
enterprise involved them more deeply. The sale of the pews was very
limited; the times soon became very unfavorable: the Berlin and Milan
decrees, the Embargo and Non-Intercourse acts, paralyzed commerce and
industry. Boston felt the shock severely. Years of painful struggles fol-
lowed. Contributions were sought all over the land. The General Con-
ference and Annual Conferences were appealed to. The Middle States, and
even Charleston, South Carolina, sent aid. The sagacious plans and large
public influence of Colonel Amos Binney and Mr. John Clark contributed
much to the final solution of the problem.
This crisis passed, the experimental period of Methodism in Boston was
over. The next twenty years was a period of steady and healthy growth.
The church extended its influence, and acquired character and respect.
Colonel Amos Binney, a trustee and steward, was a merchant, and for a
dozen years the United States Navy agent in Boston, and stood side by side
with leading citizens ; John Clark was an enterprising citizen ; George Suth-
erland, a trustee and class-leader, was a Scotchman by birth, always radiant
with sunshine, and a goldsmith by trade ; Thomas Bagnall, class-leader and
trustee, was a man of literary taste ; Mrs. Sarah Hawes, a niece of Governor
Hancock, an eminently consistent and elevated Christian, received into the
church by the Rev. Elijah Hedding, deserves mention as the " Elect Lady."
Besides these, Thomas Patten, a member of the Massachusetts Legislature,
David Patten, father of the late Rev. David Patten, Jr., D.D., of precious
memory, and William True, father of the late Rev. Charles K. True, D.D.,
an honored alumnus of Harvard College, are a few of many worthy names
of this period, conspicuous for devotion to the church. Isaac Rich and
Jacob Sleeper, gentlemen of rare excellences, belong to a later period, of
ampler opportunities, which they have filled and honored with noble char-
ities and deeds.
These two churches were favored with frequent revivals, and the mem-
bership increased from 259 in 1806 to 688 in 1830. In 1827 the church in
the Alley felt the need of a larger and better edifice. A lot was purchased
on Bennet Street, and a new church was dedicated Sept. 18, 1828, the Rev.
440 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Stephen Martindale delivering the sermon. Forty-three pews were sold,
and the only surviving purchaser is the venerable Micah Dyer, of the pres-
ent Tremont-Street Church. With these two more sightly edifices as out-
ward signs, the cause of Methodism moved forward under a strong impulse,
and other churches were organized.
The first Methodist church in Dorchester was formed in 1817, and was
due to the influence of Mr. Anthony Otheman,1 a French Huguenot, who
was one of the fruits of this denomination in Boston. In 1818 the first
Methodist church was formed in Charlestown. They purchased the wooden
structure on High Street, built by the Baptists and subsequently occupied
by the Unitarians. In 1818 a Methodist society was organized at Chelsea
Point, now Winthrop. In 1826 the May-Street, now Revere-Street, Church
was organized for the colored people, and the Rev. Samuel Snowden, highly
esteemed for twenty-five years by citizens of all classes, was their pastor.
Two periods of church colonizing have since marked the history of the
Methodist Episcopal Church within the present limits of Suffolk County.
The first was from 1834 to 1853, in which the following fourteen churches
were organized: In 1834, the Church-Street, now the Peoples', Church; in
1835, after several unsuccessful attempts previously, the First Methodist
Episcopal, now the Broadway, Church in South Boston; in 1837, the North
Russell-Street Church; in 1839, the First Methodist Episcopal, now the
Winthrop-Street, Church in Roxbury; and the First Methodist Episcopal,
now the Walnut-Street, Church in Chelsea; in 1841, the Richmond-Street
Church, and the First Methodist Episcopal, now the Meridian-Street, Church
in East Boston; in 1842, the " Odeon " Society; in 1846, the Canton-Street,
now the Tremont-Street, Church; in 1847, the Second Methodist Episcopal,
now the Monument-Square, Church in Charlestown; in 1850, the Second
Methodist Episcopal, now the Appleton, Church in Dorchester; in 1852,
the Mount-Bellingham Church in Chelsea, and the German Church in Rox-
bury; and in 1853, the Bennington-Street, now the Saratoga-Street, Church
in East Boston.
In the meantime new conditions affected the population at the North
End. They were felt soon after 1840, and became more apparent in the
next ten years, influencing unfavorably all the Protestant churches. In
1849 the Richmond-Street and the Bennet-Street churches united, and pur-
chased the large and elegant edifice of Dr. Robbins's Unitarian Society on
Hanover Street. The North Russell-Street Church held its position until
1865, when it removed to Grace Church, on Temple Street. In 1873 the
Hanover-Street Church relinquished its field and united with the Grace
Church, but retained its title as the First Methodist Episcopal Church in
Boston.
In sixteen years — from 1853 to 1869 — only two Methodist churches
were organized, — one at Jamaica Plain, in 1859, and the Dorchester-Street
Church, in South Boston, in 1860.
1 Father of the Revs. Bartholomew and Edward Otheman.
THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
441
From 1869 to 1878 is the second colonizing period, in which the follow-
ing ten churches were organized, most of them the fruits of the Boston
Methodist City Mission and Church-Extension Society: In 1869 the High-
land Church and the Ruggles-Street Church in Roxbury; in 1871, the
Washington-Village Church in South Boston, and the Broadway Church in
Chelsea; in 1872, the church at Allston; in 1873, the church at Roslindale;
in 1874, the church at Harrison Square; in 1876, the Mount-Pleasant
Church; in 1877, the Eggleston-Square Church; and in 1878, the Monroe
Mission Church on Charlestown Neck.
Two African Methodist Episcopal churches — the Zion Church on North
Russell Street, and the Bethel Church on Charles Street, now jointly num-
bering about 500 members — were organized in 1836 and 1839 respectively.
Two secessions from the Methodist Episcopal Church in Boston have
occurred, — the Protestant Methodist, in 1830, and the True Wesleyan, in
1842-43 ; but the churches formed by the retiring bodies were small, and
existed only a few years.
Among the tangible and conspicuous results of Boston Methodism,
several demand mention : —
1. The first School of Theology of the Methodist Episcopal Church had
its inception in Boston in 1839, was organized a little later in Concord, New
Hampshire, and removed to Boston in 1867. It has graduated over four
hundred young men.
2. The Boston University, with which the School of Theology united in
1871, is an outgrowth of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It was founded
by Isaac Rich, Jacob Sleeper, and Lee Claflin ; Mr. Rich bequeathing to it
his large estate. It comprises colleges of liberal arts, music, agriculture,
theology, law, and medicine, in which are 'over five hundred students.
Under the presidency of the Rev. William F. Warren, D.D., LL.D., it has
attained the highest rank. Women are admitted to all its departments, and
it is eminently progressive and catholic in all its features.
3. The Zions Herald, the oldest newspaper of the denomination, was
founded in Boston in 1823. Its successive editors have been John R.
Cotton, Barber Badger, G. W. H. Forbes, Benjamin Jones, Revs. Shipley
W. Wilson, Aaron Lummus, Mr. William C. Brown, Revs. Timothy Merritt,
Samuel O. Wright, Benjamin Kingsbury, Abel Stevens, LL.D., Daniel
Wise, D.D., Erastus O. Haven, D.D., LL.D., Nelson E. Cobleigh, D.D.,
Gilbert Haven, LL.D-., and Bradford K. Pierce, D.D. It has a circulation
of 15,000 copies.
4. The Wesleyan Association, a corporation formed in 1831, consisting
of laymen, own and publish the Zion's Herald. In 1870 they completed
and occupied the elegant Wesleyan Building on Bromfield Street, in which
are the offices of the Zion's Herald, the Wesleyan Hall, and the general
headquarters of the denomination in New England.
5. The Methodist book-store, now in the Wesleyan Building, has existed
over forty years, and has been conducted successively by Dexter S. King,
VOL. in. — 56.
442
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Strong & Broadhead, Wait, Pierce, & Co., Charles H. Pierce, and, since
1851, by the present efficient agent, James P. Magee, under whose admin-
istration its annual sales have increased from thirty thousand dollars in 1850
to eighty thousand dollars at the present time.
6. In 1872 Boston became an Episcopal residence, and a fine parsonage
was purchased, on Rutland Street, at the South End. The Rt. Rev. Ran-
dolph S. Foster, D.D., LLD., is the New England Bishop.
7. The Methodist Social Union, a body of laymen and ministers, meets
monthly in the Wesleyan Hall, for the promotion of church life and fellow-
ship.
8. The Boston Methodist Preachers' Meeting, a live aggressive body, for
the discussion of church questions and general improvement, meets every
Monday morning in the Wesleyan Hall.
9. The New-England Methodist Historical Society, whose headquarters
are in the Wesleyan Building on Bromfield Street; Hon. William Claflin,
President, Willard S. Allen, Librarian, and the Rev. Daniel Dorchester,
D.D., Historiographer.
10. The Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episco-
pal Church was here organized in the year 1869. It now covers with its
branches nearly the whole country, and raises between seventy and eighty
thousand dollars a year for the support of female missionaries and school
work in different parts of the world. Its monthly organ, The Heathen
Woman's Friend, edited by Mrs. William F. Warren, with a circulation of
twenty thousand copies, has been from the beginning published in this city.
STATISTICS OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCHES IN
BOSTON, AND SUFFOLK COUNTY.
Year.
LOCALITIES AND CHURCHES.
MINISTERS.
Mem-
bers.
1800
Boston
Thomas F. Sargeant
72
1820
Boston
David Kilburn, Benjamin R. Hoyt ....
619
Dorchester '. . .
Benjamin Hazleton, Jotham Horton
>9
Wilbur Fisk D D ...
638
1840
Boston, Bennet Street
James Porter, D.D
5°9
Bromfield Street
Stephen Lovell
475
Church Street
Thomas C. Pierce
268
North Russell Street
Jefferson Hascal, D.D
3'6
Mariner's Church
Edward T. Taylor
Ziba B C Dunham
103
Roxbury
Henry B. Skinner
>°3
Dorchester
Luman Bovden
129
133
Chelsea
John S. Springer
2 1°36
THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
443
SUNDAY SCHOOLS.
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CHURCH PROPERTY.
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PASTORS.
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Justin S. Barrows . . .
Willard F. Mallalieu, D D.
John S. Day
0 Q
FalesH. Newhall, D.D.
John Emory Round
H. Liebhout ....
Zachariah A. Mudge .
George Bowler . . .
Nathan D. George . .
.« . .0
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LOCALITIES AND CHURCHES.
i860.
>,
c
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Total, present limits of Suffolk C
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1 1 • ; • • ;
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^Sjo^SS^g s
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Total, Old Boston . .
Roxbury, Warren Street .
„ Jamaica Plain .
„ German Church
Dorchester, First Church .
Charlestown, High Street
„ Union Church
Total, in Present Boston
Chelsea, Walnut Street .
Mount Bellingham Street
Winthrop
444
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
4
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Harrison Square .
Mount Pleasant
THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
445
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446
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
COMPARATIVE PROGRESS.
LOCALITIES AND
PERIODS.
Communicants.
CHURCH PROPERTY.
SUNDAY SCHOOLS.
•5
M
lj
.£«
U
Value
of
Churches.
Parsonages.
Value
of
Pars'ges.
Schools.
Scholars.
Officers and
Teachers.
Volumes
in
Library.
Old Boston.
1840 '
2,036
2,473
2,986
2,036
3,522
5,3°7
2,036
3,9^3
6,326
4
8
10
6
'3
24
7
16
27
5
IO
1 1
8
18
26
1860
$237,000
518,500
i
6
$8,000
54,5oo
2,445
3,092
321
346
7,239
7,256
1880
Present Boston.2
1840 '
1860
287,500
862,000
334,000
942,000
i
8
8,000
65,500
3,484
6,290
478
760
10,069
12,890
1880
Suffolk County 2
1840 *
1860 .
2
IO
10,800
75,500
22
30
4,"9
7,577
569
880
'2,259
>5,47'
1880
1 Only partial statistics for 1840 can now be obtained
The same territory is included for each period.
From 1840 to 1880 the population within the present limits of Suffolk
County increased 200 per cent, and the communicants of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, 210 per cent. From 1860 to 1880 the population in-
creased 40 per cent, and the communicants, 60 per cent. All this gain
has been realized, notwithstanding the immense foreign additions to the
population during these forty years.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES. — A Short History
of the Methodists. By the Rev. Jesse Lee. Balti-
more : Magill & Clime. I2mo. pp. 366. 1810.
Life of the Rev. Jesse Lee. By the Rev. Le
Roy M. Lee, D.D. Louisville, Ky.: John Early,
Printer. 8vo. 1848.
Memorials of the Introduction of Methodism
into the Eastern States. By the Rev. Abel Stevens,
LL.D. Boston: Charles H. Pierce; pp. 490.
1848.
Second Series of the above, same author and
publisher; pp. 492. 1852.
.Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Meth-
odist Episcopal Church in the United States. 1773-
1881. Eighteen volumes, 8vo. Methodist Book
Concern, 805 Broadway, New York.
Files of the Zion's Herald, 1823-1881. 36
Bromfield Street, Boston.
Jesse Lee under the Old Elm. A pamphlet.
Boston: by the Rev. John W. Hamilton. 1879.
Cyclopedia of Methodism. By the Right Rev.
Bishop Matthew Simpson, D.D., LL.D- Phila-
delphia: Everts & Stewart. 410. pp. 1827.
1878.
MSS. "Sketches of Methodism in Boston,"
by Hon. Jacob Sleeper, of Boston; and "in
Chelsea and Dorchester," by the Rev. Edward
Otheman, of Chelsea. (Unpublished.)
CHAPTER X.
THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
BY THE REV. PHILLIPS BROOKS, D.D ,
Rector of Trinity Church.
Rev. Joshua Wingate Weeks was a minister of the Church of Eng-
land, and a missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gos-
pel in Foreign Parts, settled at Marblehead, in Massachusetts. In the year
1778 he wrote to the society an account of "The state of the Episcopal
churches in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire, etc." Of
the churches in Boston he wrote : " Trinity Church in Boston is still open,
the prayers for the King and Royal Family, etc., being omitted. The
King's Chapel is made use of as a meeting-house by a Dissenting congrega-
tion. The French have received leave from the Congress to make use of
Christ Church for the purposes of their worship ; but the proprietors of it,
having notice of this, persuaded Mr. Parker to preach in it every Sunday in
the afternoon, by which means it remains untouched. ... In a word," he
adds, " our ecclesiastical affairs wear a very gloomy aspect at present in that
part of the world."
What Mr. Weeks thus wrote in 1778 was mainly true two years later, in
1780, at the point where I begin to sketch the history of the Episcopal
Church in Boston for the last hundred years. In the mean time, the Rev.
Stephen C. Lewis, who had been chaplain of a regiment of light dragoons
in the army of General Burgoyne, had become the regular minister of Christ
Church ; but the congregation of the Old South were still worshipping in
the King's Chapel, and the Rev. Dr. Samuel Parker was in charge of Trinity.
These were the three Episcopal parishes in Boston in the year 1780. The
King's Chapel with its house of worship on Tremont Street, Christ Church
in Salem Street, and Trinity Church in Summer Street. The King's Chapel
had been in existence since 1689, Christ Church since 1723, and Trinity
Church since 1734.
It is not difficult to see what it was that made " our ecclesiastical affairs "
wear such a " gloomy aspect in this part of the world " in the days which
immediately followed the Revolution. To the old Puritan dislike of Episco-
pacy had been added the distrust of the English Church as the church of the
oppressors of the colonies. Up to the beginning of the Revolution the
448 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON,
Episcopal Church in Boston had been counted an intruder. It had never
been the church of the people, but had largely lived upon the patronage and
favor of the English governors. The outbreak of the Revolution had found
the Rev. Dr. Henry Caner, rector of King's Chapel, and the Rev. Dr. Wil-
liam Walter, rector of Trinity. Both of these clergymen went to Halifax
with the British troops when Boston was evacuated in I7/6.1 In one of the
record books of King's Chapel, Dr. Caner made the following entry : —
" An unnatural rebellion of the colonies against His Majesty's government obliged
the loyal part of his subjects to evacuate their dwellings and substance, and take refuge
in Halifax, London, and elsewhere ; by which means the public worship at King's
Chapel became suspended, and is likely to remain so until it shall please God, in the
course of his providence, to change the hearts of the rebels, or give success to His Maj-
esty's arms for suppressing the rebellion. Two boxes of church plate, and a silver
christening basin were left in the hands of the Rev. Dr. Breynton at Halifax, to be
delivered to me or my order, agreeable to his note receipt in my hands."
At Christ Church the Rev. Dr. Mather Byles, Jr., resigned the rectorship
on Easter Tuesday, 1775, meaning to go to Portsmouth in New Hampshire;
but political tumults making that impossible, he remained in Boston and
performed the duty of chaplain to some of the regiments until after the
evacuation.1 At Trinity alone was there any real attempt to meet the new
condition of things by changes in the church's worship. The parts of the lit-
urgy, having reference to the King and the Royal Family1 were omitted, and
this was the only sign which the Episcopal Church in Boston made of any
willingness to accommodate herself to the patriotic feeling of the times ; and
even with her mutilated liturgy, the associations of her worship with the hated
power of England still remained. No doubt the few people who gathered
in Trinity Church during the Revolution were those whose sympathy with
the cause of the struggling colonies was weakest and most doubtful. As one
looks at her position when the war is closed, he sees clearly that before the
Episcopal Church can become a powerful element in American life she has
before her, first, a struggle for existence ; and then another struggle, hardly
less difficult, to separate herself from English influences and standards, and
to throw herself heartily into the interests and hopes of the new nation.
Of how those two struggles began in the country at large, when the Revo-
lutionary war was over and our independence was established, there is not
room here to speak except very briefly. It was the sprouting of a tree
which had been cut down to the very roots. The earliest sign of life was a
meeting at New Brunswick in New Jersey, in 1784, when thirteen clergymen
and laymen, from New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, came together
to see what could be made of the fragments of the Church of England
which were scattered through the now independent colonies. The same
year there was a meeting held in Boston, where seven clergymen of Massa-
chusetts and Rhode Island consulted on the condition and prospects of their
1 [See Mr. Goddard's chapter in the present volume. — ED.]
THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 449
church. The next year there was a larger meeting held in Philadelphia, —
what may be called the first convention of the Episcopal Church in the
United States, — when delegates from seven of the thirteen States were assem-
bled. This was on Sept. 27, 1785. Evidently the fragments of the church
had life in them, and a tendency to reach toward each other and seek a cor-
porate existence. From- the beginning, too, there evidently was in many parts
of the church a certain sense of opportunity, a feeling that now was the time
to seek some enlargement of the church's standards, which would not prob-
ably occur again. Under this feeling, when the time for the revision of the
liturgy arrived, the Athanasian Creed was dropped out of the Prayer Book.
The other changes made were mostly such as the new political condition of
the country called for. These changes were definitely fixed in the conven-
tion which met in Philadelphia in 1789.
But before that time another most important question had been settled.
There could be no Episcopal Church in this country without bishops, and
as yet there was not a bishop of the Episcopal Church in the country. In
the colonial condition various efforts had been made to secure the consecra-
tion of bishops for America, but political fears and prejudices had always
prevented their success ; but no sooner was independence thoroughly es-
tablished, than a more determined effort was begun. In 1783 the Rev. Dr.
Samuel Seabury was sent abroad by some of the clergymen of Connecticut,
to endeavor to secure consecration to the episcopate to which they had
elected him. After fruitless attempts to induce the authorities of the Church
of England to give him what he sought, he finally had recourse to the non-
juring Church in Scotland, and was consecrated at Aberdeen on Nov. 14,
1784. He returned at once to America and began to do a bishop's work.
The first ordination of an Episcopal minister in Boston, which must have
been an occasion of some interest in the Puritan city, was on March 27,
1789, when the Rev. John C. Ogden was ordained in Trinity Church by
Bishop Seabury.
Meanwhile, further south, a similar attempt was being made to secure
Episcopal consecration from the Church of England, and with better success.
On Feb. 4, 1787, the Rev. Dr. William White, of Philadelphia, and the Rev.
Dr. Samuel Provoost, of New York, were consecrated bishops in the chapel
of Lambeth Palace. Thus the Episcopal Church in the United States found
itself fully organized for its work. On May 7, 1797, the Rev. Dr. Edward
Bass, of Newburyport, was consecrated in Christ Church, Philadelphia, to be
Bishop of the Diocese of Massachusetts ; and the churches of Boston became
of course subjects of his Episcopal care.
It must have been a striking, as it was certainly a novel scene, when
Bishop Bass, on his return to Boston after his consecration, was welcomed by
the Massachusetts Convention which was then in session. He was conducted
in his robes from the vestry of Trinity Church to the chancel, where he was
addressed in behalf of the members of the convention by the Rev. Dr.
Walter, now returned from his exile in Nova Scotia, and made rector of
VOL. in. — 57.
450 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Christ Church. The bishop responded " in terms of great modesty, pro-
priety, and affection." Sometime after, the Episcopal churches in Rhode
Island, and subsequently those in New Hampshire, placed themselves under
his jurisdiction.
It had not been without reluctance, and a jealous unwillingness to sur-
render their independence, that the churches in Massachusetts had joined
their brethren in the other States to accomplish the reorganization of their
church; but in the end two of the Boston churches became identified with
the new body. To Dr. Parker indeed, of Trinity Church, a considerable
degree of influence is to be ascribed in harmonizing difficulties, and making
possible a union between the two efforts after organized life which had be-
gun in Connecticut and Pennsylvania. Before, however, the general Consti-
tution of the Episcopal Church was agreed upon in Philadelphia in 1789,
the oldest of the three parishes in Boston had changed its faith and its asso-
ciations, and begun its own separate and peculiar life. It was before the
Revolutionary war was ended, and while their house of worship was still
used by the congregation of the Old South, in September, 1782, that the
wardens of King's Chapel — Dr. Thomas Bulfinch and Mr. James Ivers —
invited Mr. James Freeman, a young man of twenty-three years of age, then
living at Walpole, to officiate for them as reader for six months. He was a
native of Charlestown, had received his early education at the Boston Latin
School, and had graduated at Harvard College in 1777. At the Easter
meeting, April 21, 1783, he was chosen pastor of the chapel. The invita-
tion, in reply to which he accepted the pastorate, said to him : " The
proprietors consent to such alterations in the service as are made by
the Rev. Dr. Parker; and leave the use of the Athanasian Creed at your
discretion."
The new pastor and his people soon grew warmly attached to one an-
other ; and when, in the course of the next two years, Mr. Freeman told his
parishioners that his opinions had undergone such a change that he found
some parts of the liturgy inconsistent with the faith which he had come to
hold, and offered them an amended form of prayer for use at the chapel, the
proprietors voted, Feb. 20, 1785, that it was necessary to make some alter-
ations in some parts of the liturgy, and appointed a committee to report
such alterations. On March 28 the committee were ready with their re-
port; and on June 19 the proprietors decided by a vote of twenty to
seven " that the Common Prayer, as it now stands amended, be adopted
by this church, as the form of prayer to be used in future by this church and
congregation." The alterations in the liturgy were for the most part such
as involved the omission of the doctrine of the Trinity. They were princi-
pally those of the celebrated English divine, Dr. Samuel Clarke. The
amended Prayer Book was used in the chapel until 1811, when it was again
revised, and still other changes made.
Thus the oldest of the Episcopal churches had become the first of the
Unitarian churches of America; and now the question was how she still
THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
451
stood toward the sister churches with whom she had heretofore been in
communion. Her people still counted themselves Episcopalians. They
wanted to be part of the new Episcopal Church of the United States. Many
of them were more or less uneasy at the lack of ordination for their minister.
In 1786 Mr. Freeman applied to Bishop Seabury to be ordained ; but Bishop
Seabury, after asking the advice of his clergy, did not think fit to confer or-
ders upon him on such a profession of faith as he thought proper to give,
which was no more than that he believed the Scriptures. Mr. Freeman then
went to see Dr. Provoost at New York. The doctor, who was not yet a
bishop, gave Mr. Freeman some reason to hope that he would comply with
TREMONT STREET LOOKING NORTH.
his wishes ; but in the next year, when the wardens of the chapel sent a letter
to Dr. Provoost, who in the meantime had received consecration, " to inquire
whether ordination for the Rev. Mr. Freeman can be obtained on terms
agreeable to him and to the proprietors of this church," the bishop answered
that after consulting with his council of advice, he and they thought that a
matter of such importance ought to be reserved for the consideration of the
General Convention.
1 [This view of Tremont Street, looking
toward King's Chapel, follows a water-color pre-
sented to the Public Library in 1875. A. letter
from Mr. B. P. Shillaber, dated March 17, 1875,
on the files of the Trustees of the Library, says
it was painted by a daughter of General Knox,
and belonged to the late Miss Catharine Putnam ;
and was painted certainly before 1806, and per-
haps about 1800. The arch in the Common
fence is where the present West-street gate is.
A view from the other end of the vista, show-
ing King's Chapel, as looked at from the north,
and taken about 1830, is given in Greenwood's
History of King's Chapel, 1833. — ED.]
452 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
This ended the effort for Episcopal ordination, and on Nov. 18, 1787,
after the usual Sunday evening service, the senior warden of the King's
Chapel, Dr. Thomas Bulfinch, acting for the congregation, ordained Mr.
Freeman to be " rector, minister, priest, pastor, teaching elder, and public
teacher" of their society. Of course so bold and so unusual an act excited
violent remonstrance. A protest was sent forth by certain of the original
proprietors of the chapel, to which the wardens issued a reply. Another
protest came from Dr. Bass of Newburyport, Dr. Parker of Trinity Church,
Mr. Montague of Christ Church, and Mr. Ogden of Portsmouth in New
Hampshire ; but from the day of Mr. Freeman's ordination the King's
Chapel ceased to be counted among the Episcopal churches of Boston.1
There still remained some questions to be settled with regard to the bequest
of Mr. William Price, the founder of the Price lectureship, of which the King's
Chapel had been the original administrator. These questions lingered until
1824, when they were finally disposed of by the arrangement between the
King's Chapel and Trinity Church, under which these lectures are still pro-
vided by the latter.
It was a severe blow to the church, which was with such difficulty strug-
gling back to life, that one of the strongest of her very few parishes should
thus reject her creed and abandon her fellowship. The whole transaction
bears evidence of the confusion of the ecclesiastical life of those distracted
days. The spirit of Unitarianism was already present in many of the Congre-
gational churches of New England. It was because in the King's Chapel that
spirit met the clear terms of a stated and required liturgy that that church
was the first to set itself avowedly upon the basis oT the new belief. The at-
tachment to the liturgy was satisfied by the retention of so much of its well-
known form ; and the high character of Mr. Freeman, and the profound
respect which his sincerity and piety and learning won in all the town, did
a great deal to strengthen the establishment of the belief to which his con-
gregation gave their assent.2
Christ Church and Trinity Church alone were left — two vigorous par-
ishes— to keep alive for many years the fire of the Episcopal Church in
Boston. In 1792 Dr. Walter returned to Boston and became rector of
Christ Church, where he remained until his death in 1800. In the same
year (1792) the Rev. John Sylvester John Gardiner became the assistant of
Dr. Parker at Trinity Church. Dr. Gardiner's ministry is one of those which
give strong character to the life of the Episcopal Church here during the
century. Born in Wales, and in large part educated in England, he was
1 [See Dr. Peabody's chapter in the present repaired, was kindly given the use of the chapel
volume. — ED.] for its services. The second was in 1873, when,
2 Twice since the chapel changed its liturgy after the great fire in which Trinity Church was
and ordained its own minister, the service of the destroyed, the annual series of Price Lectures
Episcopal Church has been held by Episcopal was, by the cordial invitation of the minister and
clergymen within its venerable walls. The first wardens, preached in the chapel by the bishop of
occasion was in 1858, when for two Sundays the the diocese of Massachusetts and various Epis-
Church of the Advent, whose building was being copal clergymen of Boston.
THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
453
the true Anglican of the eighteenth century. For thirty- seven years he was
the best known and most influential of the Episcopal ministers of Boston.
His broad and finished scholarship, his strong and positive manhood, his
genial hospitality, his fatherly affection, and his eloquence and wit made
him through all those years a marked and powerful person, not merely in
the church but in the town.1
J. S. J. GARDINER, D.D.
After the year 1790 the diocesan conventions of the Episcopal Church
in Massachusetts became regular and constant. They were generally held
in Boston, — their religious services mostly in Trinity Church, and their
business sessions usually in Concert Hall. The business which they had
to do was very small, but every year seems to show a slightly increasing
strength. In 1795 the Rev. Dr. Parker and Mr. William Tudor were sent
as delegates to the General Convention which was to meet in Philadelphia
in the following September; so that the church in Massachusetts had now
become entirely a part of the general church throughout the land. In
1 [See a memoir of Dr. Gardiner in Quincy's History of the Boston Athenceum. — ED.J
454 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
1797 a committee was sent to Samuel Adams, the Governor, to ask him not
to appoint the annual Fast Day in such a way that it should fall in
Easter week, in order that it may not " wound the feelings of so many of the
citizens of this Commonwealth as compose the body of the Protestant
Episcopalians." In various ways one traces the slow growth of the church ;
yet still it was a very little body. In 1800, at the meeting of the convention
of the diocese, " in the library in Franklin Place," it was only five clergy-
men, of whom one was the bishop, and six laymen that made up the
assembly.
In 1803 Bishop Bass died, after an administration which was full of good
sense and piety, but which had not enough energy or positive character to
give the church a strong position or to secure much promise for its future.
The only other man who had stood at his post during the Revolution, — the
man to whom, as his successor, Dr. Gardiner, said of him in his funeral ser-
mon, " must doubtless be attributed the preservation of the Episcopal
Church in this town," — Dr. Samuel Parker, of Trinity Church, was chosen
to be the successor of Bishop Bass; but he died on Dec. 6, 1804, before he
had performed any of the duties of his office, and the diocese was once
more without a bishop. Indeed, in these early days it was not by any
special oversight or inspiration of the bishops that the Episcopal Church
was growing strong. It was by the long and faithful pastorships of the
ministers of her parishes. Such a pastorship had been that of Dr. Parker.
For thirty-one years Trinity Church enjoyed his care. " I well remember
him," writes Dr. Lowell, of the West Church, " as a tall, well-proportioned
man, with a broad, cheerful, and rubicund face, and flowing hair; of fine
powers of conversation, and easy and affable in his manners. He was given
to hospitality, and went about doing good." He too w.as a man of the
eighteenth century, not of the nineteenth ; but he was thoroughly the man
for his own time, and the Episcopal Church in Boston will always be his
debtor. In the year after Bishop Parker died, another of the long and use-
ful pastorates of Boston began in the succession of the Rev. Asa Eaton to
the rectorship of Christ Church, where he remained until 1829.
It was not until 181 1 that it was found practicable to unite the Episcopal
Church in Massachusetts with the same church in Rhode Island and New
Hampshire, under the care of the Right Rev. Alexander Viets Griswold,
who was consecrated bishop of what was called the Eastern Diocese.
With Bishop Griswold a new period of the life of the Episcopal Church in
Boston may be considered to begin, — a period of growth and enterprise.
Up to this time the church had been struggling for life, and gradually separ-
ating itself from the English traditions which had haunted its thought and
hampered its usefulness. It had been a weak and in some sense a foreign
church. Now it had grown to considerable strength. Its ministers were
true Americans. It prayed for the Governors and Congress of the Union
with entire loyalty. It took, indeed, no active part in the speculations or
the controversies of the day. Its ministers were not forward in theological
THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 455
or political discussion. It rested with entire satisfaction upon its completed
standards, and contributed no active help to the settlement of the theological
tumults which were raging around it; but it was doing good and growing
strong. It had won for itself the respect and confidence of the community ;
and when the first returns are made from parishes to the diocesan conven-
tion in 1812, the two Boston churches report a considerable number of
communicants. Christ Church has sixty, and Trinity Church has one hun-
dred and fifty, and on the great festivals as many as three hundred.
The second period, the period of growth and of some enterprise, may be
said to extend from 1811 to 1843. The earliest addition to the number of
churches, which had remained the same ever since the departure of King's
Chapel, was in the foundation of St. Matthew's Church in what was then
the little district of South Boston. That picturesque peninsula, which now
teems with crowded life, had in 1816 a population of seven or eight hundred.
In that year the services of the Episcopal Church were begun by a devoted
layman, Mr. John H. Getting ; and two years later a church building was
consecrated there by Bishop Griswold. The parish has passed through
many vicissitudes and dangers since that day, but it has always retained its
life and done good service to the multitudes who have gradually gathered
around it.
In 1819 another new parish began to appear, formed principally out of
Trinity Church; and on June 3, 1820, the new St. Paul's Church in Tre-
mont Street was consecrated by Bishop Griswold, assisted by Bishop
Brownell, of Connecticut. The first rector of the new parish was the Rev.
Samuel Farmar Jarvis, a native of Connecticut, an ecclesiastic of sincere de-
votion to his church, and a scholar of excellent attainments. St. Paul's
Church made a notable and permanent addition to the power of episcopacy
in the city. Its Grecian temple seemed to the men who built it to be a tri-
umph of architectural beauty and of fitness for the church's services. " The
interior of St. Paul's," so it was written while the church was new, " is re-
markable for its simplicity and beauty ; and the materials of which the
building is constructed give it an intrinsic value and an effect which have
not been produced by any of the classic models that have been attempted
of bricks and plaster in other cities. The erection of this church may be
considered the commencement of an era of the art in Boston." On its
building committee, among other well-known men, were George Sullivan,
Daniel Webster, David Sears, and William Shimmin. When it was finished,
it had cost $83,000. The parish leaped at once into strength; and in 1821
it reports that " it has ninety communicants, and that between six and seven
hundred persons attend its services."
In 1824, when Boston had reached a population of fifty-eight thousand,
the four Episcopal churches which it contained numbered in all six hundred
and thirty-four communicants, — certainly not a great number, but certainly
an appreciable proportion of the religious community.
456 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
In 1827 Dr. Alonzo Potter succeeded Dr. Jarvis at St. Paul's; and he
brought with him that broad, strong intellect and noble character and
earnest zeal which made him all his life one of the very strongest powers
in the Episcopal Church of the United States. In the same year the Rev.
George W. Doane, who was afterward the successor of Dr. Gardiner at
Trinity, came to be his assistant. These were both notable additions to the
church's ministry in Boston. They were men of modern character; they
put new life into the now well-established church. The very dryness of
the tree when it was brought hither from England had perhaps made
it more possible to transplant it safely, but now that its roots were in
the ground it was ready for more vigorous life. In quite different ways,
with very dissimilar characters and habits of thought, Dr. Potter and Dr.
Doane represent not unfitly the two great tendencies toward rational
breadth and toward ecclesiastical complexity, which were beginning to
take possession not merely of this church but of all the churches. The
Rev. John H. Hopkins, who in 1831 became the assistant of Dr. Doane
at Trinity, was another of the strong characters who showed the church's
greater life.
Another name of great interest in the church history of Boston ap-
peared in 1829, when the Rev. William Croswell came from Hartford, a
young deacon just ordained, to succeed Dr. Eaton at Christ Church. Dr.
Eaton's ministry had been long and useful. He had established in 1815 the
first Sunday-school which ever existed in this region. His parish had no
doubt already begun to change with the changes of the city's population ;
but when Mr. Croswell came there it was still strong, and, though his most
remarkable ministry was to be elsewhere than in Christ Church, his coming
there marks the first advent to the city of one of the most interesting men
who have ever filled its Episcopal pulpits.
The slow addition of parish after parish still went on. In 1830 Grace
Church, which had been struggling with much difficulty into life, appears at
last as an organized parish, and is admitted into union with the Convention.
At first the new congregation worshipped in Piedmont Square, and then in
Bedford Street. It was not until 1836 that its new stone church in Temple
Street was finished and consecrated. In Roxbury the first movement toward
the establishment of an Episcopal Church began to appear as early as 1832 ;
and, after worshipping for a while in a building called the Female High
School, the new parish finished and occupied its sober, serious stone struct-
ure on St. James Street in 1834. Its first rector was the Rev. M. A. De
Wolf Howe, who is now the bishop of the diocese of Central Pennsylvania.
While these new parishes were springing into life, the old parish of Trinity
was building its new house of worship, which was to stand until the great
fire should sweep it away in 1872. The solid, battlemented Gothic church,
* which for so many years stood and frowned at the corner of Summer and
Hawley streets, was consecrated on Nov. 11, 1829. The next year Dr.
Gardiner, for so many years the honored minister of the parish, died in
THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
457
England, where he was seeking his lost health, and Dr. Doane became
rector of Trinity Church in his stead.
In these years also another man appears for the first time, who is after-
ward to hold a peculiar place in the life of the church in Boston ; to be,
indeed, the representative figure in its charitable work. It is the Rev. E.
M. P. Wells, who is in charge of the House of Reformation Chapel at South
Boston. Indeed, now for the first time there began to be a movement of
THE RUINS OF TRINITY, 1872.
the Episcopal Church toward the masses of the poor and helpless. Up to
this time it had been almost altogether the church of the rich and influen-
tial. It had prided itself upon the respectability of its membership ; but
in 1837 St. Paul's, which had now passed into the earnest and fruitful
ministry of the Rev. John S. Stone, had a mission-school of between sixty
and eighty scholars on Boston Neck, and there was a Free Church in the
Eleventh Ward-Room in Tremont Street, and Mr. Wells had his work at
South Boston. The movements were not very strong nor very enduring,
but they showed a new spirit, and were the promises of better things to
come.
VOL. in. — 58.
458 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
In 1840 there were the beginnings of two new parishes. The church at
Jamaica Plain was as yet only a mission of St. James's in Roxbury, and was
under the charge of the rector of that church till 1845, when it secured a
minister of its own. In Charlestown a few Episcopalians met in the Con-
gregational Church, and organized a parish under the charge of the Rev.
Nathaniel T. Bent. The corner-stone of their building was laid in 1841,
and the building was finished the next year. Both of these parishes were
named St. John's.
Thus in 1843 there were in what is now Boston seven Episcopal par-
ishes. In that year Bishop Griswold died. When he was chosen bishop,
in 1811, there were only two parishes; and, besides this increase in the
number of organized churches, there had begun to be, as we have seen,
some movement of missionary life. These thirty-two years had been a
period of growth and quiet enterprise. There had been no marked stir of
active thought; men had believed and taught much as their fathers had
before them. There had been no disputes or controversies about faith or
worship ; but all the time a fuller and fuller life was entering into the whole
church. The evangelical spirit, which was the controlling power of the
Church of England, ruled the parishes here, and inspired the system which
under the churchmanship of the eighteenth century had been so dead. Of
all this time the type and representative is Bishop Griswold. He stands,
indeed, at the head of the active history of the church in Massachusetts to
give it, as it were, its true key-note, — somewhat. as Bishop White stands at
the start of the Episcopal Church in the United States at large; or, we may
say, perhaps, as Washington stands at the beginning of the history of the
nation. He had the quiet energy which the times needed, a deep and
simple piety, a spirit of conciliation which was yet full of sturdy conscien-
tiousness, a free but reverent treatment of church methods, a quiet humor,
and abundance of " moderation, good sense, and careful equipoise." He
had much of the repose and peace of the old Anglicanism, and yet was a
true American. He had patience and hope and courage, sweetness and
reasonableness in that happy conjunction which will make his memory, as
the years go by, to be treasured as something sacred and saintly by the
growing church.
The third period in the history of the Episcopal Church in Boston,
reaching from 1843 to about 1861, is not so peaceful as the last. Before
Bishop Griswold died the signs of coming disagreement had appeared ;
and even before it was felt in this country, a new and aggressive school of
church life had taken definite shape in England. This is not the place
to write the history of that great movement which within less than fifty
years has so changed the life of the English Church. In 1833 the first of
the so-named Tracts for the Times was issued at Oxford, and from then
until 1841 the constant succession of treatises, devoted to the development
of what became known as Tractarian or Puseyite ideas, kept alive a per-
THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
459
petual tumult in the Church of England. Led by such men as Dr. Pusey
and John Henry Newman, the school attracted many of the ablest and most
devoted of young Englishmen. The points which its theology magnified
were the apostolical succession of the ministry, baptismal regeneration, the
eucharistic sacrifice, and church tradition as a rule of faith. Connected with
its doctrinal beliefs, there came an increased attention to church ceremonies
and an effort to surround the celebration of divine worship with mystery
and splendor.
This great movement, — this Catholic Revival, as its earnest disciples
love to call it, — was most natural. It was the protest and self-assertion of
a partly neglected side of religious life ; it was a reaction against some
of the dominant forms of religious thought which had become narrow and
exclusive ; it was the effort of the church to complete the whole sphere
of her life ; it was the expression of certain perpetual and ineradicable
tendencies of the human soul. No wonder, therefore, that it was power-
ful. It made most enthusiastic devotees ; it organized new forms of life ;
it created a new literature ; it found its way into the halls of legislation ;
it changed the aspect of whole regions of education. No wonder, also,
that in a place so free-minded and devout as Boston each one of the per-
manent tendencies of religious thought and expression should sooner or
later seek for admission. Partly in echo, therefore, of what was going on
in England, and partly as the simultaneous result of the same causes
which had produced the movement there, it was not many years before
the same school arose in the Episcopal Church in America; and it showed
itself first in Boston in the organization of the Church of the Advent.
The first services of this new parish were held in an upper room at No. 13
Merrimac Street, on Dec. i, 1844. Shortly after, the congregation moved
to a hall at the corner of Lowell and Causeway streets, and on Nov. 28,
1847, it took possession of a church in Green Street, where it remained
until 1864. Its rector was Dr. William Croswell, a man of most attractive
character and beautiful purity of life. We have seen him already as min-
ister of Christ Church from 1829 to 1840. After his resignation of that
parish he became rector of St. Peter's Church, Auburn, New York,
whence he returned to Boston to undertake the new work of the Church of
the Advent. The feature made most prominent by its founders with regard
to the new parish was that the church was free. This, combined with its
more frequent services, its daily public recitation of morning and evening
prayer, an increased attention to the details of worship, the lights on its
stone altar, and its use of altar-cloths, were the visible signs which distin-
guished it from the other parishes in town.
By this time the poor and friendless population of Boston had grown
very large, and the minister and laity of the Church of the Advent, in com-
mon with those of the other parishes in the city, devoted much time and
attention to their visitation and relief.
Bishop Griswold before his death had feared the influence of the new
460 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
school of churchmanship, and had written a tract with the view of meeting
what he thought to be its dangers ; but the duty of dealing with the new
state of things in Boston fell mostly to the lot of his successor. In the year
1842 the Rev. Dr. Manton Eastburn, rector of the Church of the Ascension
in New York, had become rector of Trinity Church in Boston, and had
been consecrated assistant-bishop of Massachusetts. That interesting cere-
mony took place in Trinity Church on Dec. 29, 1842. On Bishop Gris-
wold's death, in 1843, Bishop Eastburn succeeded him; and in his Con-
vention address of 1844 we find him already lifting up his voice against
" certain views which, having made their appearance at various periods
since the Reformation, and passed away, have been again brought forward
in our time." These remonstrances are repeated almost yearly for the rest
of the bishop's life. On Dec. 2, 1845, Bishop Eastburn issued a pastoral
letter to the clergy of his diocese, in which he recounts his disapprobation
of " various offensive innovations upon the ancient usage of our church,"
which he had witnessed on the occasion of a recent episcopal visit to the
Church of the Advent. On Nov. 24, 1846, he writes to Dr. Croswell that
he cannot visit the parish officially again until the offensive arrangements of
the church are altered. These utterances of the bishop led to a long dis-
cussion and correspondence which lasted for the next ten years. On Nov.
9, 1851, Dr. Croswell died very suddenly, and Bishop Eastburn's discussion
was continued with his successor, the Right Rev. Horatio Southgate. It
was not until Dec. 14, 1856, that the parish received again the visitation of
its bishop ; and in his report to the diocesan convention in 1857 Bishop
Eastburn explains the change in his action by saying that " the General Con-
vention having passed, during its session in October last, a new canon on
episcopal visitations, I appointed the above mentioned day, shortly after the
close of its sittings, for a visit to the Church of the Advent, for the purpose
of administering confirmation."
^This Closed the open conflict between the bishop and the parish. In
1864 the Church of the Advent moved from Green Street to its present
building in Bowdoin Street, where it was served, after Bishop Southgate's
departure in 1858, by the Rev. Dr. Bolles. Upon his resignation in 1870
the parish passed into the ministry of members of an English society of
mission priests, known as the Brotherhood of St. John the Evangelist, and
in 1872 the Rev. Charles C. Grafton, a member of that society, became its
rector. In 1868 it began the erection of a new church in Brimmer Street,
which is not yet completed. The peculiarities of faith and worship of this
parish have always made it a prominent and interesting object in the church
life of Boston.
But during these years of conflict the healthy life and growth of the
church were going on. In 1842 began the long and powerful rectorship of
the Rev. Dr. Alexander H. Vinton at St. Paul's Church. For seventeen
years his ministry there gave noble dignity to the life of the church in Bos-
ton, and was the source of vast good to many souls. His work may be con-
THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 461
sidered as having done more than that of any other man who ever preached
in Boston, to bring the Episcopal Church into the understanding, the sym-
pathy, and the respect of the people. His vigorous mind and great acquire-
ments and commanding character and earnest eloquence made him a most
influential power in the city and the church. He was met as he first came
to St. Paul's by a deep religious interest which was only the promise of the
profound spiritual life which will always make the years of his ministry here
memorable and sacred. He remained in Boston until 1858, when he re-
moved to Philadelphia; but later in life, in 1869, he returned to his old
home, and was rector of Emmanuel Church till December, 1877. As
these pages are being written he has just passed away, leaving a memory
which will be a perpetual treasure to the church. He died in Philadel-
phia on April 26, 1881.
In 1843 the growth of the city southward toward the Neck was marked
by the organization of the new Church of the Messiah in Florence Street,
which, under the ministry of the Rev. George M. Randall, sprang at once
to useful life. The parish worshipped for a while in a hall at the corner of
Washington and Common streets. The corner-stone of the new Church
was laid Nov. 10, 1847, and the church was consecrated Aug. 29, 1848.
In 1843 the mission work of. the Rev. E. M. P. Wells, which afterward be-
came so well known, and which was never wholly abandoned till his death,
began at what was called Trinity Hall in Summer Street. About the same
time the Rev. J. P. Robinson began a mission for sailors in Ann Street,
which for many years excited the interest and elicited the generosity of the
Episcopalians of Boston, and which still survives in what is called the Free
Church of St. Mary, for sailors, in Richmond Street. In 1846 an indi-
vidual act of Christian generosity provided the building of St. Stephen's
Chapel in Purchase Street, the gift of Mr. William Appleton, where Dr*.
Wells labored in loving and humble sympathy and companionship with the
poor until, on the terrible night of Nov. 9, 1872, the great fire swept his
church and house away. He was a remarkable man, with a genius for
charity, and a childlike love for God.
Meanwhile a parish was slowly growing into life in the populous district
of East Boston. St. John's Church was organized there in 1845. After
many disappointments and disasters it finished and occupied its house of
worship in 1852. In 1849 St. Mary's Church in Dorchester was added to
the number of suburban churches. In 1851 St. Mark's Church at the South
End finds its first mention in the record of the acceptance of its rectorship
by the Rev. P. H. Greenleaf, who had just resigned the charge of St. John's
Church in Charlestown. The next year this new church bought for itself a
church building which it afterward removed to Newton Street, and in which
it is still worshipping. In 1856 the Rev. Dr. Thomas R. Lambert began his
ministry in Charlestown, and the Rev. Wrilliam R. Babcock came to Jamaica
Plain. In 1860 the Rev. Dr. William R. Nicholson became rector of St.
Paul's Church, and the Rev. George S. Converse of St. James's.
462 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
These were years full of life, a life which, if it sometimes became restless
and controversial, flowed for the most part in a steady stream of zealous
and ever-widening work. The traditions which had bound the church al-
most exclusively to the rich and cultivated were cast aside. It had ac-
cepted its mission to all classes and conditions of men. The number of
communicants increased. In 1847 there were about two thousand in the
churches of what then was Boston, and men whom the city knew and felt
and honored were preaching in the Episcopal pulpits.
With the year 1860 begins the latest period of our history. A new
Boston was growing up on the Back Bay; the country was just entering
on the great struggle with rebellion and slavery; and the fixed lines of
theological thought were being largely broken through. All of these
changes were felt in the fortunes of the Episcopal Church in Boston. On
March 17, 1860, a meeting of those who were desirous of forming a new
Episcopal church, west of the Public Garden, was held at the residence of
Mr. William R. Lawrence, 98 Beacon Street. The result of this meeting,
and the others to which it led, was the organization of Emmanuel Church,
and the erection of its house of worship in Newbury Street, which was
consecrated April 24, 1862. The parish held its services, before its church
building was finished, in the Mechanics' Hall, at the corner of Bedford
and Chauncy streets. Of this parish the first rector was the Rev. Dr.
Frederick D. Huntington, who had long been honorably known in Boston,
first as the minister of the South Congregational Church, in the Unitarian
denomination, and afterward as the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals
and Preacher to the University at Cambridge. It was in view of his leav-
ing his Unitarian associations, and seeking orders in the Episcopal Church,
and in expectation of his becoming its rector, that the parish of Emmanuel
Church was organized. Dr. Huntington was ordained Deacon in Trinity
Church, on Wednesday Sept. 12, 1860, Bishop Burgess, of Maine, preach-
ing the sermon. On the next Sunday he took charge of his new congre-
gation, and his ministry from that time until he was made Bishop of the
diocese of Central New York, in 1869, was one of the most powerful influ-
ences which the Episcopal Church has ever exercised in Boston. Under
his care Emmanuel Church became at once a strong parish, and soon put
forth its strength in missionary work. It founded in 1863 a mission chapel
in the ninth ward, from which came by and by the Chapel of the Good
Shepherd, which now, with its pleasant building in Cortes Street, is an in-
dependent and useful parish church.
In 1860 St. Matthew's Church in South Boston, which had for twenty-
two years enjoyed the wise and gracious ministry of the Rev. Dr. Joseph
H. Clinch, was left without a rector by his resignation; and in 1861 the
Rev. Dr. J. I. T. Coolidge was chosen to supply his place. Dr. Coolidge,
like Dr. Huntington, had been a Unitarian minister, and had only a short
time before received ordination in the Episcopal Church.
THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
463
In 1861 the war broke out, and for the next four years the country was
in the struggle with Rebellion. It is good to find that from the Bishop's
chair there came no hesitating utterances of loyalty. In his Convention
address in 1861 Bishop Eastburn denounces the "nefarious rebellion." In
1862 he congratulates the Convention on the "success with which thus far
a gracious Providence has crowned the armies of the Union in their con-
flict with the perpetrators of rebellion." In 1863 he rejoices over the
loyal utterances of the late General Convention, and particularly over the
pastoral letter of the bishops : " A masterly document it is, represent-
ing this stupendous insurrection as a criminal violation of God's law, and
strengthening its positions by reference not only to the Bible, but to the
pungent old homily of our church against rebellion." In 1864 his Con-
vention address bespeaks sympathy for " the wounded thousands among
our soldiers and among the legions of our misguided enemies ; " and at
last, in 1865, he rejoices over the sight of "a most wicked rebellion at last
defeated, its military power broken, and the dawn appearing of what we
trust will ere long be a bright day of Union restored, of the renewal of the
arts of peace, and of the blotting out of human bondage from every por-
tion of the national territory." Such words are full of the positiveness
which belonged to Bishop Eastburn's character, and which made him for
so many years a powerful element in the diocese over which he presided
and in the city where he lived. He held to his convictions with most un-
questioning faithfulness, and strove with all his might to impress them on
his congregation and on the church. His long ministry at Trinity Church
will always be remembered; and when he resigned his rectorship in 1868 he
carried with him the love of many and the respect of all. He was assisted
at Trinity Church by several men who have been among the most eminent
clergymen of the Episcopal Church. The Rev. John L. Watson, the Rev.
Dr. Thomas M. Clark, now Bishop of the Diocese of Rhode Island, the
Rev. Dr. John Cotton Smith, the Rev. Dr. Alexander G. Mercer, and the
Rev. Dr. Henry C. Potter were successively associated with Bishop East-
burn as assistant ministers on the Greene foundation. After the bishop's
resignation of the rectorship of Trinity Church, the Rev. Phillips Brooks
became its minister in 1869.
Various missionary enterprises and efforts for the extension of the
church occurred during the war, and in the years immediately following its
close. In 1861 St. James's Church, Roxbury, established a mission chapel
on Tremont Street, which, under the charge of the Rev. Mr. Converse,
became a few years later an independent parish, named St. John's. In
1877 St. James's Church, now under the ministry of the Rev. Percy Browne,
again manifested its energetic life by the establishment of another mission
chapel, in Cottage Street in Dorchester, which is called St. Anne's Chapel.
In 1867 St. Mary's Church in Dorchester began a mission in Milton Lower
Mills, which has grown into a distinct parish, bearing the name of All
Saints'. In 1875, after Dr. Vinton had succeeded Dr. Huntington as rec-
464 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
*
tor of Emmanuel Church, his assistant, the Rev. B. B. Killikelly founded a
mission at the West End of Boston, which, bearing the name of the Free
Chapel of the Evangelists, is now under the care of Trinity Church. In
1875 a mission at City Point was organized by the Rev. John Wright,
rector of St. Matthew's Church. In 1873 a new mission grew up in the
part of South Boston called Washington Village, which is known as Grace
Chapel, under the charge of the Board of City Missions.
All these are signs of life and energy. Only once has a parish ceased to
be. In 1862 the Rev. Dr. Charles Mason, rector of Grace Church, died.
He has left a record of the greatest purity of life and faithfulness in work.
After his death the parish of Grace Church became so feeble that at last
its life departed. Its final report is made in 1865, when it records that
the building in Temple Street had been sold to the Methodist Episcopal
Society of North Russell Street. Grace Church had been in existence
almost forty years.
These last years also have seen great changes in the personal leader-
ship of the parishes and of the church. Bishop Eastburn died Sept. 12,
1872, after an episcopate of thirty years; and his successor, the Rev. Dr.
Benjamin Henry Paddock, was consecrated in Grace Church, Brooklyn,
N. Y., on Sept. 17, 1873. After Dr. Randall was made bishop of Col-
orado in 1865, the Rev. Pelham Williams became rector of the Church of
the Messiah, and he was succeeded in 1877 by the Rev. Henry F. Allen. In
1877 Dr. Vinton gave up the rectorship of Emmanuel Church, and in 1878
the Rev. Leighton Parks became his successor. The Rev. Henry Burroughs
became the rector of the venerable Christ Church in 1868, and the Rev.
William Wilberforce Newton succeeded the Rev. Treadwell Walden as
rector of St. Paul's Church in 1877.
Very gradually, and by imperceptible degrees, the parishes of Boston
have changed their character during this hundred years which we have been
surveying. Their churches have ceased to be mere places of worship for
the little groups which had combined to build them, preserving carefully the
chartered privileges of their parishioners. They have aspired to become re-
ligious homes for the community, and centres of religious work for the help
of all kinds of suffering and need. Many of the churches are free, open-
ing their pews without discrimination to all who choose to come. Those
which are not technically free are eager to welcome the people. In places
which the influence of the parish churches cannot reach, local chapels have
been freely built. It would be interesting to trace the causes which have
both drawn and driven the churches of all denominations to this effort after
larger fellowship with the people. In the case of the Episcopal Church it
is specially significant, as indicating that she is no longer a stranger in the
land.
Besides the parish life of the Episcopal Church in Boston, and the insti-
tutions which have grown up under distinctively parochial control, the gen-
eral educational and charitable institutions of the church should not be left
THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 465
unmentioned. For many years the project of establishing a Divinity School
of the Protestant Episcopal Church at Boston, or somewhere in its imme-
diate neighborhood, had been from time to time recurring. Once or twice
small beginnings had been made, but they had never come to any permanent
result. In 1867 a very generous gift of Mr. Benjamin Tyler Reed secured
what had so long been wanted ; and the Episcopal Divinity School of Cam-
bridge was founded on a strong basis which insures its perpetuity. Since
that time other liberal gifts have increased its equipment, and it is now
one of the best provided theological schools in the country. Though not
properly a part of Harvard University, it shares many of its privileges and
draws many advantages from its neighborhood.
The Church Home for Orphans and Destitute Children, which is now
situated at South Boston, was founded in 1855, by the Rev. Charles Mason,
who was then rector of Grace Church. St. Luke's Home for Convales-
cents, which has its house in the Highlands, was established originally as a
parish charity of the Church of the Messiah, during the ministry of the
Rev. Dr. Pelham Williams, but it is now an institution of the church at
large, and its affairs are administered by a board, of which the bishop is
the head.
The great fire of Nov. 9 and 10, 1872, destroyed two of the Episco-
pal churches of Boston, — Trinity Church in Summer Street, and St.
Stephen's Chapel in Purchase Street. St. Stephen's has not yet been re-
built. Trinity had already begun the preparations for a new church
before the fire ; and the new buildings1 on Huntington Avenue were conse-
crated on Friday, Feb. 9, 1877, by Bishop Paddock, the consecration ser-
mon being preached by the Rev. Dr. Vinton, then rector of Emmanuel
Church. Between the time of the fire and the consecration of the new
church the services of Trinity Church were held in the Hall of the Massa-
chusetts Institute of Technology, in Boylston Street.
These are the principal events which have marked the history of the
Episcopal Church in Boston during this last period of the century. There
are within the present city limits twenty-two churches and chapels, with
five thousand six hundred and seventy-five communicants, and four thous-
and two hundred and forty-nine scholars in their Sunday-schools.
And these last twenty years have been full of life and movement in
theological thought. The Tractarian revival of 1845 has passed into its
more distinctively ritualistic stage ; and the broader theology, which also
had its masters in England, in such men as Dr. Arnold and the Rev.
Frederick D. Maurice, has likewise had its clear and powerful effect upon
the Episcopal Church in Boston. A lofty belief in man's spiritual possi-
bilities, a large hope for man's eternal destinies, a desire for the careful
and critical study of the Bible, and an earnest insistence upon the com-
1 [A view of the new Trinity is given in the chapter on "Architecture in Boston," in Vol.
IV. — ED.].
VOL. III. — 59.
466
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
prehensive character of the Church of Christ, — these are the character-
istics of much of the most zealous pulpit teaching and parish life of these
later days.
The Episcopalian of a century ago, whatever might be his surprise at
the outward progress which his church has made in Boston, would be still
more surprised, if he should come among us now, at the variety in ways
of worship, the freedom in the search for truth, and the earnestness of the
desire to reach all men and help them, which are the hope and promise for
the future of the Episcopal Church in Boston.
CHAPTER XL
THE UNITARIANS IN BOSTON.
BY THE REV. ANDREW P. PEABODY, D.D., LL.D.,
Plummer Professor of Christian Morals in Harvard University.
THE earliest intimation of dissent in Boston from the normal Calvin-
istic creed of the Congregational churches is in connection with
the settlement of Rev. Jonathan Mayhew, as pastor of the West Church,
in 1747. He was regarded as heretical at that time; in the council
that ordained him there was no Boston minister, and he never became a
member of the Boston Association of Ministers. As a man of genius,
energy, and influence, he had hardly his equal among the clergy. He was
among the pioneers of the American Revolution, and numbered among his
most intimate friends those of his fellow-townsmen who afterward bore the
most active part in the conflict with Great Britain. The son of a mission-
ary to the Indians, he distinguished himself by a controversy on the dis-
posal of the funds of the English Society for Propagating the Gospel, which
he contended had been bestowed for the evangelization of the Indians and
the exigencies of poor colonists, and, as he maintained, wrongfully perverted
to the support of Episcopal churches in old and established communities.
Among the antagonists thus brought into the field was no less a personage
than Seeker, Archbishop of Canterbury. Dr. Mayhew made open profession
of his departure from the received standard of Orthodoxy both in the pulpit
and from the press, and of course must have had a congregation largely, if
not fully, in sympathy with his avowed religious belief. He died in ij66.1
As we have few landmarks of religious history in the ensuing season of
political and military agitation, and as he was the only Boston Unitarian
minister who did not survive the War of Independence, we will assume
A.D. 1780 as the starting point for our historical outline, and will thus
attempt to give record to the fortunes of Unitarianism for a century.
In 1780 nearly all the Congregational pulpits in and around Boston were
filled by Unitarians.2 This condition of things may be accounted for on
1 [See Dr. McKenzie's chapter in Vol. II., Unitarian did not come into general use till early
where will be found a likeness of Mayhew. — ED.] in the present century, though the specific
2 They were commonly called Arminians at dogma designated by that name had long been
the above-named date. The distinctive name of openly preached and professed.
468 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
several grounds. The Whitefieldian movement,1 with its extravagance, fa-
naticism, and intolerance, had been followed by a strong reaction, especially
among persons of education and refinement. Equally had the more pas-
sive, yet more rigid, type of Orthodoxy encountered a growing repugnancy
wherever it was not received with implicit and unquestioning faith. Nor
had the Revolutionary War and the new political interests and relations been
void of influence on religious belief and profession. The same spirit that
had spurned civil rule from abroad was not slow to detect or suspect the
coercive element in creeds and confessions of faith. A more liberal political
regime, if not logically, yet not unnaturally, postulated a broader theological
platform. Then, too, among the English Unitarians were some of the most
prominent and active friends of the colonies during their conflict with the
mother country. Meanwhile, in the disturbed condition of secular affairs,
those who would else have been the guardians of reputed Orthodoxy had
relaxed their vigilance. The clergy of the Revolution, to whom the country
owes eternal gratitude, did not, as has sometimes been alleged, preach
politics instead of religion ; but in their strenuous endeavor to hallow patri-
otism by sermon, prayer, psalm, and hymn, those of them who held the
traditional faith of their fathers laid less emphatic stress upon it, and were
more tolerant of departure from it, than they would have been at an earlier
or a later period.
Under these conditions and influences had grown up a generation of
clergy and of laymen, who had not so much drifted from the old moor-
ings as forsaken them from deliberate conviction, and on what seemed to
them sufficient reason. I can find no proof that concealment — sometimes
charged upon the clergy of that day — was practised by them. The ques-
tion as to their theological belief can be answered in every instance by
extracts from their printed sermons, and by direct testimony as to their
undoubted utterances. The true state of the case is that their opinions
were not generally regarded as heretical. They professed to agree with
Samuel Clarke and his numerous sympathizers in the English Church, and
were not without some apparent countenance in the writings of such Dis-
senters as Watts and Doddridge. Indeed, they seem to have regarded
themselves, in what was termed their " high Arianism," as differing in hardly
more than an infinitesimal degree from their Trinitarian brethren, forgetting
that between the Infinite Being and the greatest of the finite — which they
deemed Christ to be — the distance is immeasurable. When there ensued
a revival of the earlier theology, in the new-born zeal and fervor it seemed
impossible that such lax doctrinal views could ever have been tolerated
alongside of the Trinitarian faith, and hence the theory that they must have
been held in secret. Yet if in secret, how could the fact be well known and
thoroughly substantiated at the present day?
The liberal clergy of that period seem to have had little zeal, and the
spirit of propagandism, whether as to their own belief or as to the common
i [See Vol. II., ch. vi. — ED.]
THE UNITARIANS IN BOSTON. 469
Christianity, was wholly wanting. But they were devout men, of pure and
exemplary lives, and diligent in their parochial and social duties. Christian
ethics formed the chief staple of their preaching, but not without the con-
stant and loving recognition of Jesus Christ as an infallible Teacher and an
all-sufficient Saviour. It may be doubted whether there existed at that
time any reasonable ground on which a sharp dividing line could have been
drawn through the clergy of Boston and its vicinity. There were few, if any,
whose Orthodoxy would half a century later have been recognized as sound,
while the liberal clergy were much more nearly in sympathy with moderate
Calvinists than with Unitarians of the Priestley school.
As regards the religious condition of these churches it would be equally
difficult and unfair to apply the tests of our time. There was very little of
religious activity within the several parishes. There were few or no meet-
ings for social devotion or mutual instruction among the laity, nor was there
any arrangement or accommodation for other than the public services.
" Night meetings," as they were called, were held in general disesteem
as of doubtful moral tendency ; and it is not many years since the death of
a clergyman of eminent piety, and not given to boasting, who to the very
last deemed it a title to commendation that he had never in his life been at
a " night meeting." The Sunday-school had not begun to be, and the only
approach to it was an annual or semi-annual " catechising," — an occasion on
which, the children of the parish being gathered in front of the pulpit, the
minister asked questions from the catechism in use which were answered
by the boldest or brightest of the flock, and closed the service by a short
address and a prayer. Thus, to the two Sunday services there was very
little of week-day supplement. But both those services were attended with
unfailing regularity by all of every age who had not good reason for ab-
sence; and the oldest Boston clergyman now living, who was pastor of a
congregation second to none in wealth and fashion, says that during the
greater part of his ministry occasional sermons, and those which were re-
garded as of superior interest, were uniformly preached in the afternoon,
as the number of persons necessarily absent was smaller than in the morn-
ing. There were also preparatory-lectures (so-called), — religious services
with sermons, — on some afternoon of the week preceding the celebration
of the Lord's Supper. These were well attended, but for the most part by
women. The Thursday (morning) lecture, at the First Church, still re-
tained some vestiges of its old importance,1 as may be seen in the fact that
among the printed sermons of the time, on subjects which most commanded
the public attention, a great number were first delivered at that lecture.
The number of communicants in those churches was not small, though
it included but few young persons. The rite of infant baptism was gener-
ally observed, parents who were not communicants claiming this privilege
for their children in some of the churches under what was called, by an
unintended yet virtual irony, the "half-way covenant,"2 while in others no
1 [See Vol. I. p. 515. and II. p. 190. — ED.] 2 [See Vol. I. p. 194. — ED.]
470 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
profession or obligation of this kind was required. The form of admission
to the full communion of the church was assent to a (so-called) covenant,
embracing an avowal of Christian belief and a promise to live in accordance
with such belief. The several forms of covenant — identical in their im-
port— were most of them preserved intact from the foundation of the re-
spective churches, and contained no specification of dogmas ; because, when
they were first used, there was no suspicion or anticipation of dissent from
traditional Orthodoxy.
As to the more private manifestation of religious faith and feeling, there
was a much more distinct recognition of things sacred than now exists in
general society. Daily family worship was a prevalent custom. There were
few families in which there was not for the younger members a stated time
on Sunday afternoon or evening for religious reading, recitation, or instruc-
tion. Sunday was observed, not indeed with Puritanical severity, but by
refraining from secular labor and business, from needless travelling, and
from public and social recreations ; while there were not a few who them-
selves practised Sunday austerities and abstinences which they did not seek
to impose upon others. At the same time, the moral standard among the
members of these Boston congregations was at least as high as it has ever
been in any community. Rigid honesty and incorrupt integrity character-
ized the merchants and office-holders.- Defalcation and embezzlement were
almost unknown ; fraudulent bankruptcy was hardly dreamed of; and a
breach of contract exposed the offender to open shame. As regards intem-
perance, there was probably less of hard drinking in the good society of
Boston than in the same condition of life anywhere else ; most of the lead-
ing men in Church and State are known to have been strictly sober and self-
restraining in their habits ; and it was among the ministers and laymen of
the Unitarian churches in and about Boston that the earliest temperance
society in the world had its origin, its principal officers, and its most efficient
members.
As to all local charities Boston, though very far behind its present posi-
tion, was a century ago in advance of its time. There was little enterprise,
indeed, in seeking objects or inventing modes of charitable relief; but there
was never wanting a general readiness to meet all known cases of poverty
and suffering with prompt succor and faithful care.
In fine, it is but just to say, that, while Boston showed a wider departure
from conventional orthodoxy of belief than any other community or vicin-
age in the United States, it was at least on a level with the best in the
observances, sanctities, and moralities of the Christian life.
The precise extent of Unitarianism in the Congregational churches of
Boston it is very difficult to determine, on account of the slight stress laid
on differences that came in subsequent generations to be considered as of
vital importance. Probably the Old South Church consisted for the most
part of Trinitarians and moderate Calvinists, though there is reason to
believe that their minister, Dr. Eckley, denied the supreme deity of
THE UNITARIANS IN BOSTON. 471
Christ. On the other hand, the Brattle-Square Church — foremost among
the Boston churches in point of liberal views and professions — had for its
minister, in 1780, Dr. Colman, undoubtedly a Trinitarian ; and his immediate
successor, Dr. Thacher, was always reckoned among the Calvinistic clergy.
There rqmains no token to show that "Mr. Wight, of the Hollis-Street Church,
may not have been a Calvinist ; yet there is ample reason to believe that his
congregation was of the more liberal type. There was a small Presbyterian
church in Long Lane, afterward Federal Street, consisting originally for the
most part of persons of Scottish birth or parentage, who were extreme
Calvinists ; 1 but in 1787 the Presbyterian had been exchanged for the Con-
gregational form of church government, and a Unitarian minister was then
inducted into the pastoral office.
In the towns that have now become a part of Boston, it is believed that
the church in Charlestown was the only one which, by a majority, adhered
to the earlier faith of New England; and even here, in 1788, a Unitarian
minister was the agent in securing for the church the services of that re-
doubtable champion of Orthodoxy, Rev. Dr. Morse, and preached his ordi-
nation sermon. .Rev. Dr. Gordon, the historian, well known to have been
a Calvinist, was pastor of the church at Jamaica Plain in 1780; but his
society, while admiring him for his patriotic devotion to his adopted coun-
try, and loving him for his rare excellence, had but little sympathy with him
in his theological opinions.
The First Church had for its senior pastor in 1780 Rev. Charles Chauncy,
D.D., a descendant of the second President of Harvard College, a man of
eminent ability and learning, and holding by a truly venerable character no
less than by years the foremost place among his brethren.2 He was con-
spicuous as the earnest antagonist of the dogma of eternal punishment,
which, however it may have been called in question by individual thinkers,
was generally regarded as an essential doctrine of the Gospel. With him
was associated Rev. John Clarke, D.D., who possessed graces of style and
an aesthetic culture to which his distinguished senior could lay but slender
claim, and who while still in the meridian of life, though with a fully estab-
lished reputation as a preacher and a minister, was struck down in his pulpit
by a fatal attack of apoplexy.
In the Second Church the pulpit of the Mathers was occupied by Rev.
John Lathrop, D.D.,3 who, without remarkable powers, filled a singularly
large place in the community, rendered important service as an officer or a
leading member of numerous public institutions, was trusted, honored, and
beloved as a man of faultless excellence, and after a ministry of half a
century left a name second to none in the reverence of his own and the
memory of succeeding generations.
Rev. John Eliot, D.D., was at that time pastor of the New North Church.
He was well known in connection with historical researches and labors, and
1 [See Vol. II. p. 225. — ED.] 2 [A portrait of Dr. Chauncy is given in ch. vi. of Vol. II. — ED.]
8 [His portrait is given in Drake's Boston, p. 311. — ED.]
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
at the same time had in his special calling a reputation for superior attain-
ments as a scholar and ability as a writer, while his social gifts and the
qualities of his character made his presence always welcome, whether in
literary circles or in the homes of his parishioners.
The New South Church, which had been vacant from 1775, was filled in
1782 by the ordination of Rev. Oliver Everett, who, after a brief ministry,
was succeeded by Rev. Mr. — afterward President — Kirkland.
In the West Church Dr. Mayhew had been succeeded by Rev. Simeon
Howard, D.D., of whom the record runs that " his parishioners loved him as
a brother and honored him as a father; his brethren in the ministry always
met him with a grateful and cordial welcome; and the community at large
reverenced him for his simplicity, integrity, and benevolence." It seems to
have been well known from the time of his ordination that he was a Unitarian ;
and it is a token of the change that had meanwhile come over the theology
of the Boston churches, that, while it was usual for ministers to apply for
admission into the Boston Association, which he had omitted to do on
account of the heretical reputation of his church, in 1784 the Association
took the initiative, and appointed a committee to confer with him as to
membership of that body.
In 1782 began a series of proceedings which brought Unitarianism
prominently before the public. King's Chapel, the oldest Episcopal church
in New England, had been left without a pastor by the flight of its royalist
rector at the time of the evacuation of Boston ; and the Old South congrega-
tion had held their services there, pending the repairs of their own house of
worship, which had been used as a riding-school by the British troops. When
this arrangement was about to terminate, the wardens of King's Chapel invited
Mr. (afterward Dr.) James Freeman to become their minister. On resum-
ing their stated worship, the majority of the proprietors found themselves no
longer in the state of religious belief which the liturgy presupposes. They
resolved, therefore, so to alter the established form of prayer as to exclude
the recognition of the Trinity and the supreme deity of Christ. In aid of
this enterprise Mr. Freeman preached a series of doctrinal sermons, which
emphatically designated his own position and that of his church. The
society still desiring to retain its connection with the Episcopal Church, Mr.
Freeman applied for ordination to Bishop Seabury, of Connecticut, and then
to Bishop Provoost, of New York, — to the latter not without reasonable hope
of success; for American Episcopacy was still so far inorganic as to admit
into its administration what would now seem the grossest irregularities. On
the failure of these applications recourse was had to the doctrine of the
Cambridge Platform, that the greater right of election, which resides in
the members of the church, includes the lesser right of ordination. The
validity of this ordination was assailed in the papers of the day; but it was
warmly defended by Rev. Mr. (afterward Dr.) Belknap, who had just been
installed as the first Congregational pastor of the church in Long Lane
(Federal Street).
THE UNITARIANS IN BOSTON. 473
Dr. Belknap, not long afterward, performed a very important service
for the non- Trinitarian churches in publishing a collection of psalms
and hymns, which early came into general use, and has been superseded
only within the memory of many now living. This volume is of interest as
an index of the religious belief and feeling of the churches that welcomed
its advent. It is full of tenderly devout and almost adoring reverence for
REV. JAMES FREEMAN, D.D.1
Christ, and recognizes his exalted rank and his sacrificial death, but omits
or alters such portions of the hymns selected as confer on him the titles
exclusively appropriate to God, and such as imply a plurality of divine
persons. In the preparation and introduction of such a book as this we
1 [This cut follows a portrait by Gilbert sion to copy it. Dr. Freeman was born in 1759,
Stuart, belonging to Mrs. W. E. Prince, of New- and died in 1835. He was the grandfather of the
port, to whom the editor is indebted for permis- Rev. James Freeman Clarke, I"). P. — ED.}
VOL. III. — 60.
474 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
have a clear refutation of the old charge of concealment ; for no form of
profession could be more public than the exclusion of wonted themes of
sacred song from the stated services of the church.
During the last two decades of the last century, ecclesiastical quiet in
the Congregational churches seems to have been wholly undisturbed. The
differences of opinion were not ignored, but condoned. Ministers of both
parties exchanged pulpits freely, sat together on church councils, and united
in ordination and other public services. The first tokens, or rather pre-
monitions, of a rupture occurred in 1808, in a controversy occasioned by the
choice of Rev. Henry Ware, Sr., a well-known Unitarian, as Hollis Professor
of Divinity at Harvard College. There can be but little doubt that this
event either induced or hastened the foundation of. the Andover Theologi-
cal Seminary, and the establishment of the Park-Street Church, — the
former destined to furnish earnest antagonists of Boston Unitarianism ;
the latter specially designed to check its ascendancy and to counteract
its influence.
In 181 1 we find the first symptoms of objection to the wonted system of
pulpit exchanges, which was not, however, generally discontinued till 1819.
In 1815 appeared in Boston, as was supposed at the instance of Dr. Morse,
a reprint of an English pamphlet comprising a history of American Uni-
tarianism, from documents and information furnished by Dr. Freeman and
others, and published by Rev. Mr. Belsham. This was designed as a note of
alarm, and was reviewed in the Panoplist, with the purpose of identifying
the Unitarianism of Boston with that of Belsham, Priestley, and other Eng-
lish divines of the same extreme type. This identity was denied by the Rev.
William E. Channing in a letter addressed to the Rev. Samuel C. Thacher,
which led to a sharp controversy between Mr. Channing and the Rev. Dr.
Worcester, of Salem. Mr. Channing was undoubtedly in the right as to the
main intent of his first pamphlet ; for, with possibly a single exception, the
liberal clergy of Boston had as little sympathy as their Orthodox neighbors
with the humanitarianism and materialism of their English brethren. But
from this time the line between the two parties was distinctly drawn ; and on
both sides the controversy became vivid and earnest, and, though generally
courteous, occasionally assumed a bitterness which may be ascribed to the
time rather than to the combatants, for the best men of that day carried
into their political contests an intensity of acrimony and of personal abuse,
such as now finds tolerance only and hardly in the least reputable quarters.
Meanwhile, important changes had taken place in the Boston pulpit.
Dr. Channing's power as a preacher had raised the Federal-Street Church to
a commanding position and influence. He was first remarked chiefly for
the unction and fervor of his sermons on the claims, duties, and prerogatives
of the spiritual life, and was reluctantly drawn into controversy, which with
him was a supposed necessity, — never a choice. While no man of his
time wielded a keener pen, his polemic writings were but an interlude in a
life spent for the most part on that higher plane on which good men of
THE UNITARIANS IN BOSTON. 475
all parties throw aside their arms, and with which his memory is now so in-
timately associated.
Mr. Buckminster, of the Brattle-Square Church, though decided and
outspoken in his opinions, did not engage in controversy. He, if we may
trust the recollections of those who were wont to hear him, was the Chry-
sostom of America. In countenance, voice, and gesture he had all the best
REV. JOSEPH S. BUCKMINSTER.1
gifts of an orator ; and these were hallowed by profound religious feeling,
and enriched by faultless rhetoric and a glowing imagination, which have
not since been transcended, if equalled, in the Boston pulpit.
Buckminster was succeeded by Edward Everett, whose youthful, brilliant
ministry gave promise of a not unequal fame, and whose subsequent career
affords ample ground for regret that his first profession had not enjoyed in
1 [This portrait follows a likeness by Stuart, owned by the late George W. Lyman, Esq. — ED.]
476 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
after years the usufruct of the eloquence, learning, and ripened wisdom which
have left their record in so many departments of literature and of public
service. During his brief pastorate, — which lasted but little more than a
year, — while he won high reputation as a preacher, he found time to write
a defence of Christianity, in answer to an assault on the Christian re-
ligion and its records by George B. English. This is among the most able
treatises on the Christian evidences which have appeared during the present
century ; and it has almost faded from the memory of man, simply because
it was so close a hand-to-hand conflict that it could hardly survive, in the
interest of the reading public, the book which it annihilated and tore in
pieces, and of which the fragments remain like flies embedded in amber.
Everett was succeeded by the Rev. John G. Palfrey, D.D., whose ministry
of nearly twenty years was characterized by ability — though on a different
plane — by no means inferior to that of the men whose place he filled,
and who until recently survived in feeble age, with mind undimmed, and
in the full enjoyment of an undoubting Christian faith and a sight-like
hope of immortality.
Among his coevals in the ministry we have space to name only Nathaniel
L. Frothingham, D.D., a scholar, a poet of no mean gifts, and the master of
a prose diction of rare and faultless elegance; Henry Ware, Jr., D.D.,
whose devotional fervor made his personal intercourse and his whole life a
perpetual preaching of the gospel ; Francis W. P. Greenwood, D.D., who
has hardly been surpassed in the consecration of intensely vivid and lofty
imaginative powers to the highest themes, and who made an invaluable con-
tribution to the service of the sanctuary in the hymnal which held for many
years deservedly the foremost place in the Unitarian churches; Alexander
Young, D.D., a sound theologian, assiduous in the duties of his calling, and
devoting his leisure to the fruitful study of literary antiquities and of Amer-
ican history; and Ezra S. Gannett, D.D., whose body, early crippled by
paralysis, sustained for many years an unsurpassed amount of exhausting
professional labor, and whose eloquent discourse, beneficent activity, and
burning zeal, equally in behalf of his own views of truth and of every cause
of human well-being, were as fresh and vigorous at three-score and ten as
in the flush of youth.
Meanwhile, a change, which yet was hardly a change, had taken place in
the creed of these younger Unitarians. Dr. Channing was an Arian (so-
called), certainly during his active ministry, probably through life; so was
Dr. Francis Parkman. But the pre-existence of Christ ceased to be gener-
ally maintained. Yet the Boston clergy of that day were not humanitarians
in the common acceptation of that word. Christ held in their reverence a
place far above humanity. He was a being so inspired and empowered by
God, that the highest titles and attributes, not essentially divine, were his of
right. He was sinless, infallible, ever present with his Church, the dispenser
of all spiritual gifts, the judge of men. In fine, he was the central object of
religious trust, love, and aspiration ; and this, not by virtue of aught apper-
THE UNITARIANS IN BOSTON. 477
taining to his humanity, but by the power, wisdom, and love of God, in-
carnated in him as in no other being in the universe.
Under this dispensation, after the lull of the Trinitarian controversy, for
a decade or more the Liberal churches enjoyed rest, peace among them-
selves, growing esteem from their fellow-Christians, and all the tokens of an
established and even increasing prosperity. During this period and the
few preceding years the number of new Unitarian churches was larger, we
think, than that of those built by any other denomination, and there was
hardly one of the churches — old or new — that was not generously sus-
tained and respectably well rilled.
In 1825 was formed the American Unitarian Association, which has
always had its headquarters and held its meetings in Boston. This Associ-
ation has supported a publishing and a missionary agency, has been recog-
nized in and out of the denomination as its special organization for
propagandism, and now possesses permanent trust-funds amounting to
about two hundred thousand dollars, and derives from the churches an
annual income ranging from one fourth to half-that amount.
In 1826 the Rev. Joseph Tuckerman, D.D., who had been for a quarter
of a century minister of Chelsea, began his labors among the poor and
the religiously destitute in Boston, and under his auspices a permanent
" ministry at large " was established. There had been, indeed, previously
much missionary labor among the poorer classes, and the Boston Sunday-
schools of all denominations were from the first to a very large extent mis-
sionary schools ; but it is believed that the enterprise of Dr. Tuckerman was
the earliest organized effort in that direction. Its success and its permanent
establishment as an institution were due in great measure to its founder's
strenuous perseverance, his self-sacrifice, his apostolic fervor of spirit, and
the power of his influence. The association that has this work in charge is
termed the Benevolent Fraternity of Churches, and consists of delegates
from all the Unitarian churches in what used to be Boston, — Roxbury and
Charlestown retaining the methods of charitable work in use at the time of
their annexation. The Fraternity has generally supported from three to
five missionaries, and assumes the charge of three chapels, besides rendering
important aid in other ways to the religious instruction of the poor.
Early in the fourth decade of the century there arose in the Unitarian
churches in and around Boston an earnest discussion growing out of the type
of philosophy which bore the somewhat vague name of Transcendentalism.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, it was understood, resigned his pastorate, not for lack
of faith or reverence, but because the forms of the Church were inadequate to
express his intuitions of spiritual truth. The Rev. George Ripley, who re-
mained several years longer in the ministry, held the foremost place as the
expounder and champion of the new theology, which may, perhaps, best be
characterized as hyper-spiritualism ; and Professor Andrews Norton was re-
garded as its chief antagonist.1 The controversy was fully as much philosophi-
1 [See Mr. Ripley's kind characterization of Professor Norton in Vol. IV. — ED.]
478 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
cal as religious ; and, so far as it found its way into the churches, it related less
to the doctrines of the New Testament than to the proof of their validity.
It may be that both parties were equally in the wrong, — the one in laying
on external evidence a greater stress than in the nature of the case it can
bear; the other, in ignoring all testimony to spiritual truth except that of
individual consciousness, and thus by inevitable implication rendering ob-
jective truth inconceivable. The peculiar type of speculation represented
in these movements seemed to have a very brief currency ; yet it had a
large and permanent influence in and beyond the denomination in which it
first came to light, in both broadening and deepening the philosophy of re-
ligion, and in diffusing more just views of the relative importance, on the
one hand, of fundamental truths, and on the other of the facts that authen-
ticate them, and the dogmas that are their more or less approximate
expression.
In 1841 Theodore Parker, in an ordination sermon at South Boston,
started a controversy of deeper significance. He expressly denied the
authenticity of all that is supernatural in the Gospel narrative ; while he
represented Jesus Christ as pre-eminently the Providential man, the greatest
of all teachers of spiritual and ethical doctrine and duty, and maintained
the literal truth of the text which he had taken, — " My words shall not pass
away." His sermon was received at the outset with general alarm and dis-
approval. He was asked to withdraw from the Association of Ministers to
which he belonged, and, though he declined to do this, his relations of
clerical intercourse and pulpit exchange were thenceforward confined to
very few of its members. His following, however, rapidly increased. He
soon became minister of a new congregation, which, including transient
hearers, was probably the largest in Boston ; and he was recognized by
those who had no sympathy with his negations as a man of fervent piety, of
a thoroughly upright purpose, and of self-sacrificing philanthropy. His
opinions have now undoubtedly not a few adherents among both the clergy
and the laity, and are represented — in some cases, it may be, exaggerated
— in what may be termed the " left wing " of the denomination in Boston
and elsewhere.
Meanwhile, there has been on the part of the " right wing" a growing affin-
ity to the more liberal of the Trinitarian Congregationalists, in the tendency to
regard Christ's humanity as divine in a sense supreme and sole ; so that the
probably spurious reading of the long-disputed passage in St. Paul's Epistle
to Timothy, " God manifest in the flesh," would be adopted equally on
either side as the most appropriate designation of Christ's true place in the
faith of his Church and in the spiritual universe.
Of the Unitarian clergymen now living we, of course, cannot speak ; and
of their coevals who have passed away, while there are, as we believe, none
of whom we might not make honorable mention, our limits will permit us to
name but two, both of whom were distinguished equally by the conspicuous
positions which they filled, and by the large place which they held in the
THE UNITARIANS IN BOSTON. 479
confidence, respect, and affection of the whole community. Ephraim Pea-
body, D.D., for ten years minister of King's Chapel, while able and intensely
impressive as a preacher, was pre-eminently "a man of the beatitudes; " and
the lapse of a quarter of a century since his death cannot have made his
memory dim or less precious in the minds of the many who hardly have
known, or expect to know in this world, his like. George Putnam, D.D., for
nearly fifty years pastor of the First Church in Roxbury, had few equals in
his profession in vigor of intellect, in directness and force of logical state-
ment and rhetorical appeal, and in the command of an audience of the high-
est culture and receptivity. At the same time, those who knew him best
saw in him a reserved power which, if fully put forth, would have insured
for him, in any profession or department, a far-diffused and long-enduring
fame.
The Unitarian churches in Boston, though numerous, and several of them
in a very prosperous condition, occupy at the present time a much less
prominent place than they held a century ago. They then embraced the
larger part of the men eminent for ability, worth, and beneficence, and most
of the principal merchants, lawyers, and physicians. Of these they have now
their fair proportion, probably not more. Their growth has undoubtedly
been checked, and their integrity impaired, by the successive controversies
to which reference has been made, and also by the absence of an authorita-
tive standard of doctrine, and the wide divergence of opinion among the
leading ministers and members. Whether such a standard is in itself
desirable, or whether greater unanimity of belief is attainable without a
sacrifice of independent thought, it is not the province of history to deter-
mine or consider.
The Unitarian denomination has been ably represented in the periodical
literature of Boston from the early years of the present century. The
Monthly Anthology, a literary and theological magazine, was begun in
1804, and had among its contributors Buckminster, Norton, and almost all
the younger scholars and divines of Boston and Cambridge. This, after
eight years of brilliant reputation, was succeeded for two years by the Gen-
eral Repository and Review, under similar auspices, but with a wider scope.
In 1813 the Rev. Noah Worcester began the editorship of the Christian
Disciple, which in 1824 was virtually merged in the Christian Examiner.
This last had for its editors at different times Doctors Palfrey, Walker,
Greenwood, Lamson, Gannett, Putnam, G. E. Ellis, Hedge, and Hale, and
was for several years under the sole charge of the Rev. William Ware, better
known as the author of Zenobia and Probns. For the forty-five years of its
existence it was distinguished for its literary merit as well as for its learned
and skilled discussion of theological subjects. Its place has been taken,
and in part filled, by the Unitarian Review, which — more popular in char-
acter— contains many articles of large and permanent interest, and in which
Dr. Ezra Abbot's monograph on the genuineness of the fourth Gospel — by
far the most learned and thorough discussion of this subject which has
480
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
appeared on either side of the Atlantic — was first printed in successive
numbers. Other monthlies have had a shorter life, some of them dying, not
prematurely, though early; and some, well worthy of a longer existence,
had the material means of support been afforded.
The principal newspaper, — the organ of the denomination, if, indeed, it
has an organ, — the Christian Register, has reached its sixtieth year, and has
had at various times the editorial services of men of distinguished reputation.
From the Boston press have been issued not a few specifically Unitarian
works in exposition or defence of the doctrines of the denomination, as well
as very many volumes of sermons and essays by its leading clergymen. It
is enough to say of these that they have, in general, equally indicated and
cherished a high order of literary taste, attainment, and culture.
UNITARIAN CHURCHES IN BOSTON, AND THEIR MINISTERS.
The ministers to whose names t is affixed are not known to have been Unitarians ; those to
whose names \ is affixed are known not to have been Unitarians. The first date annexed to the
names of the ministers is that of ordination or installation; the second that of dismissal or death.
The date joined to the designation of the church is that of its foundation.
FIRST CHURCH, 1630.
Charles Chauncy . 1727 — 1787
John Clarke . . . 1778 — 1798
William Emerson . 1799 — 1811
John L. Abbot . . 1813 — 1814
Nathaniel L. Froth-
ingham .... 1815 — 1850
Rufus Ellis . . . 1853 —
SECOND CHURCH,* 1650.
John Lathrop . . 1768 — 1816
Henry Ware, Jr. . 1817 — 1830
Ralph W. Emerson 1829 — 1832
Chandler Robbins . 1833—1875
Robert Laird Collier 1876—1878
Edward A. Horton 1880 —
KING'S CHAPEL,
James Freeman. . 1782 — 1835
Samuel Gary. . . 1809 — 1815
Francis W. P. Green-
wood .... 1824 — 1843
Ephraim Peabody . 1846—1856
Henry W. Foote . 1861 —
CHURCH IN BRATTLE SQUARE,
1699.
Samuel Cooper J . 1746 — 1783
Peter Thacher J . . 1705—1802
Joseph S. Buck-
minster .... 1805 — 1812
Edward Everett . 1814 — 1815
John G. Palfrey . . 1818—1830
Samuel K. Lothrop 1 834-18762
NEW NORTH CHURCH,
1714.
John Eliot . . . 1779—1813
Francis Parkman . 1813—1849
Amos Smith . . . 1842 — 1848
Joshua Young . . 1849 — 1852
Arthur B. Fuller . 1853—1858
Robert C. Waters-
ton3 1859 — 1861
William R. Alger . 1863* —
NEW SOUTH CHURCH,
1719.
Moses Everett . . 1782—1792
John T. Kirkland . 1794—1810
Samuel C. Thacher 1811—1818
Francis W. P. Green-
wood 1818 — 1821
Alexander Young . 1825 — 1854
OrvilleDewey . . 1858—1861
William P. Tilden . 1862 5 —
FEDERAL-STREET CHURCH,
1727.
Jeremy Belknap . 1787 — 1798
John S. Popkint • 1799 — 1802
Wm. E. Channing . 1803 — 1842
Ezra S. Gannett . 1824 — 1871
John F. W. Ware . 1872—
HOLLIS-STREET CHURCH,
1732-
Ebenezer Wight t . 1778 — 1788
Samuel West . . 1789—1808
Horace Holley . . 1809 — 1818
John Pierpont . . 1819 — 1845
David Fosdick . . 1846 — 1847
Thomas S. King . 1848—1860
George L. Chancy . 1862 — 1877
Henry B Carpenter 1879 —
1 In 1854 this church took possession of the church 4 At this time the New North united with the Bulfinch-
ifice belonging to the Church of the Saviour, which was Street Church, retaining its name,
erged in the Second Church. 5 In 1866 this church was merged in the New South
edifi
merged in the Second Church.
2 This church was dissolved in 1876.
3 Not installed.
Free Church, of which Mr. Tilden became and remains
pastor.
THE UNITARIANS IN BOSTON.
481
WEST CHURCH, 1737.
Jonathan Mayhew . 1747 — 1766
Simeon Howard . 1767 — 1804
Charles Lowell . . 1806 — 1861
Cyrus A. Bartol . 1837 —
BULFINCH-STREET CHURCH,1
1822.
Paul Dean . . . 1823 — 1840
Frederic T Gray . 1839—1853
William R. Alger2 1855—
TWELFTH CONGREGATIONAL
CHURCH, 1825.
Samuel Barrett . . 1825 — 1861
Joseph Levering 1860-1861 3
THIRTEENTH CONGREGATIONAL
CHURCH, 1825.
George Ripley . . 1826 — 1841
Jas. I. T. Coolidge . 1842-1858*
SOUTH CONGREGATIONAL
CHURCH, 1827.
Mellish I. Motte . 1828—1842
Frederic D. Hunt-
ington .... 1842 — 1855
Edward E. Hale . 1856—
CHURCH OF THE DISCIPLES,
i84i.5
James F. Clarke . 1841 —
CHURCH OF THE SAVIOUR,S
1845-
Robert C. Waters-
ton 1845 — '852
INDIANA-STREET CONGREGA-
TIONAL CHURCH^ 1845.
Thomas B. Fox . . 1845—1855
CHURCH OF THE UNITY, 1857.
Geo. H. Hepworth 1858 — 1869
Martin K. Schermer-
horn 1870 — 1874
Minot J. Savage . 1875 —
CHURCH OF THE REDEEMER,
1864.
Caleb D. Bradlee . 1864—1872
HAWES-PLACE CHURCH, 1819.
Zechariah Wood} . 1819 — 1822
Lemuel Capen8 . 1827 — 1839
Chas. C. Shackford 1841 — 1843
George W. Lippitt . 1844 — 1851
Thomas Dawes . . 1854 — 1861
James T. Hewes . 1862—1864
Frederic Hinckley . 1865 — 1867
George A. Thayer 1869 — 1873
Herman Bisbee . . 1874 — 1879
John F. Dutton . . 1880—
SECOND HAWES CHURCH, 1845.
Moses G. Thomas . 1846 — 1848
Edmund Squire . . 1852-1853°
George A. Thayer . 1873 —
CHURCH IN WASHINGTON
VILLAGE, 1857.
Edmund Squire . . 1857 — 1861
A. S. Ryder . . . 1861—1868
James Sallaway . 1868 —
SECOND CONGREGATIONAL
CHURCH IN EAST BOSTON,
1845-
Leonard J. Liver-
more .... 1847 — 1851
Warren H. Cud-
worth .... 1852 —
FIRST CHURCH IN ROXBURY,
1630.
Eliphalet Porter . 1782—1833
George Putnam . . 1830 — 1876
John G. Brooks . . 1875 —
MOUNT PLEASANT CHURCH
(ROXBURY), 1846.
William R. Alger . 1847—1854
Alfred P. Putnam . 1855—1864
Charles J. Bowen . 1865 — 1870
Carlos C. Carpenter 1870 — 1879
William H. Lyon 10 1880—
FIRST CHURCH IN WEST ROX-
BURY, 1712.
Thomas Abbott . 1773 — 1783
John Bradford . . 1785 — 1825
John Flagg . . . 1825 — 1831
George Whitney . 1831 — 1836
Theodore Parker . 1837 — 1846
Dexter Clapp . . 1848 — 1851
Edmund B. Willson 1852 — 1859
T. B. Forbush . . 1863—1868
Augustus M.Haskell 1870 —
FIRST CHURCH IN JAMAICA
PLAIN, 1770.
William Gordon } . 1772 — 1786
Thomas Gray . . 1793 — 1847
George Whitney . 1836 — 1842
Joseph H. Allen . 1843 — 1847
Grindall Reynolds . 1848 — 1858
Jas. W. Thompson . 1859 —
Charles F. Dole . 1876—
FIRST CHURCH IN DORCHES-
TER, 1630.
Moses Everett . . 1774 — 1793
Thaddeus M. Harris 1793 — '836
Nathaniel Hall . . 1835—1875
Samuel J. Barrows . 1876 — 1881
THIRD CHURCH IN
TER, 1813
Edward Richmond .
Francis Cunning-
ham
Richard Pike . .
Thos. J. Mumford .
Henry G. Spaulding
George M. Bodge .
DORCHES-
1817 — 1842
1834—1842
1843—1863
1864—1871
1873-1877
1879—
CHURCH IN HARRISON SQUARE,
1848.
Francis C. Williams 1849—1850
Samuel Johnson . 1850 — 1851
Stephen G. Bulfinch 1852—1863
Joseph B. Marvin . 1865 — 1866
Frederic Hinckley . 1867 — 1869
Henry C. Badger . 1871—1874
Nathaniel Seaver . 1875 — 1876
Caleb D. Bradlee . 1876—
1 Originally a Universalist church. Mr. Dean changed
his ecclesiastical relations several years before Mr. Gray's
settlement.
2 This church migrated with its pastor to the Music
Hall, where it had a brief period of prosperity, then sank
into decline and dissolution.
3 Dissolved in 1863.
VOL. III. — 6l.
4 Dissolved shortly after Mr. Coolidge's dismission.
5 United with Indiana-Street Church in 1855.
6 United with the Second Church in 1854.
7 United with the Church of the Disciples in 1855.
8 Mr. Capen began supplying the pulpit in 1823.
9 Suspended from 1855 to 1873.
10 Not installed.
482
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
CHURCH OF THE UNITY (NE-
PONSET), 1859.
Frederic W. Hol-
land '859 — 186''
HARVARD CHURCH (CHARLES-
TOWN), 1816.
Thomas Prentiss . 1817-1817
Saml. W. McDaniel 1864—1866
Hasket D. Catlin . 1867—1870
Albert C. Nickerson 1871 — 1879
Charles B. Elder . 1880—
FIRST CHURCH IN BRIGHTON,
1783-
John Foster . . . 1784 — 1829
Daniel Austin . . 1828—1838
Abner D. Jones . . 1839 — 1842
Frederic A. Whit-
nev . • 1847 — 1857
James Walker . . 1818 — 1839
George E. Ellis . . 1840—1869
Charles E. Grinnell 1869—1873
Pitt Dillingham . 1876 —
HARVARD CHAPEL (CHARLES-
TOWN), 1846.
Nathaniel S. Folsom 1846 — 1849
Oliver C. Everett . 1850 — 1869
Charles F. Barnard 1869—1878
BULFINCH-STREET CHAPEL,1
Charles Noyes . . 1860—1863
Saml. W. McDaniel 1867—1869
Thomas Timmins . 1870-1871
Edward I. Galvin . 1872 — 1876
William Brunton . 1877 —
1826.
Joseph Tuckerman 1826 — 1840
Frederic T. Gray . 1834—1839
Robert C. Water-
ston . . iS"?Q — 184 <;
Andrew Bigelow . 1845 — 1846
Samuel H. Winkley 1846 —
WARREN-STREET CHAPEL,
1834.
Charles F. Barnard 1834—1866
Wm. G. Babcock . 1865 —
SUFFOLK-STREET CHAPEL,
1839.
John T. Sargent . 1837—1844
Samuel B. Cruft2 . 1846—1861
HANOVER-STREET CHAPEL,
1854.
W. G. Scandlin . . 1854-1858
Edwin J. Gerry . . 1858 —
CONCORD-STREET CHAPEL,
1864.
J. E. Risley t . . 1864—1865
Wm. E. Copeland a 1864—1866
1 Established by Dr. Tuckerman. The society has
worshipped in chapels successively in Friend, Pitts, and
Bulfmch streets.
fl^L^^
2 The church merged in the New South Free Church.
3 The church merged in the New South Free Church.
CHAPTER XII.
THE CENTURY OF UNIVERSALISM.
BY THE REV. A. A. MINER, D.D.,
Pastor of the Columbus- A venue Universalist Church.
PREVIOUS to the opening of the history of organized Universalism in
Boston in 1785, the subject of human destiny had awakened an
especial interest. Half a century earlier there had arisen here and there a
star of promise, and the query was anxiously pondered, whether God had
not something better in store for his children than was commonly believed?
The type of Christianity then prevalent in all its features was strongly
Calvinistic. The mere suggestion that these doctrines might not be. true,
though condemned by the bigoted, was received by others with profound
though often silent, satisfaction.
Symptoms of dissent appeared at no very great intervals of time from
three widely different sources. The Arminian drift of thought rejected the
dogmas of election and reprobation, and culminated in the organization of
the now wide-spread Methodist Episcopal Church. The revolution in theo-
logical opinion herein involved was relatively slight. To the Socinian spirit
the doctrine of the Trinity was especially obnoxious, — and the Unitarian
Church is the result. Deeper and broader than both these was a revulsion
from the whole catalogue of doctrines so logically knit together, moulded
by the assumption of the infinite wrath of God, and resulting in the endless
and unmitigated woe of the vast majority of mankind in all ages of the world.
Substituting for that wrath the infinite love of God, burning as a purifying
fire toward even the most sinful, it not only breathed a new spirit into the
science of theology in general, but specially replaced the doctrine of end-
less punishment with the glad hopes of universal salvation. Out of these
hopes have sprung the Universalist churches.
Among the foregleams of this faith, and the earliest of them in this
country, was the preaching of Dr. George de Benneville, who was born in
London, of French refugees. Persecuted in England, he went to France,
where, in addition to imprisonment for his heresy, he came near suffering
the penalty of death. Emigrating to the United States in 1741, he settled
in Berks County, Pennsylvania, practising as a physician and preaching
484 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
the Word without fee or reward.1 Two other distinguished preachers of
Universalism, widely removed from each other, arose at about the same
time in our country, — namely, the Rev. Richard Clarke, of Charleston,
South Carolina, and Dr. Jonathan Mayhew, minister of the West Church
in Boston. Of the latter the author of The Modern History of Universal-
ism says : —
" He was distinguished by great force and acuteness of mind, and for the origi-
nality and independence of his investigations. His writings gained him great credit in
Europe, and procured him a diploma of D.D. from the University of Aberdeen. From
1747 to 1766 he held the office above-mentioned, and shone as a bright star in the
constellation of the American clergy of that age." 2
Within four years of the close of Dr. Mayhew's ministry John Murray
landed at Good Luck, New Jersey. Mr. Murray was born Dec. 10, 1741, in
the town of Alton, Hampshire County, England, forty-eight miles west-
southwest of London. His youth was marked by many extraordinary in-
cidents. His religious experiences involved many vicissitudes. His father
was an Episcopalian, his mother a Presbyterian. His own sympathies were
early and deeply enlisted in Mr. Wesley, and so continued until by more
mature thought he became a disciple of James Relly.3 Having become a
husband and father, he was called to the severest affliction in the death of
both wife and child, which, followed by various other calamities, led him
to seek the solitudes of the New World.4
Landing at Good Luck, September, 1770, Mr. Murray was both surprised
and disturbed to be forbidden the solitude he sought. No sooner did his
ship appear off shore than one Potter assumed that it contained the preacher
he had long been waiting for. A series of providential incidents induced
him to preach in the church that his new friend Potter had built.5 Though
1 Modern Hist, of Universalism,^. 305-310. in which are written the names of the whole
2 Modern Hist, of Universalism, pp. 312-315. human race, will be opened, and they will be
[See also Dr. Peabody's and Dr. Goddard's chap- declared the denizens of the Kingdom of God.
ters in this volume. — ED.] Then salvation also will have become universal.
3 The Rev. James Relly, an Englishman, and In this fanciful gospel scheme, a marked va-
author of a work entitled Kelly's Union, believed riation of the Calvinistic type, Mr. Murray is
in the Trinity, in the ruin of man through Adam, supposed to have closely followed Relly. .)///;•-
and his redemption through Christ. He believed ray's Life and Letters, edition, 1816.
that the redemption was as absolute and univer- 4 Life of John Murray, edition of 1869, chs.
sal as the ruin. But he distinguished between i.-iv.
redemption and salvation. The redemption in 6 "As Murray went on shore for food, Potter
Christ, by a decree of God who orders all things, refused to sell him fish, but made him welcome
was at once universal and complete; "but sal- to whatever he wanted. He declined to make
vation, resulting from a knowledge of that re- an appointment for preaching, as he must sail
demption, is not yet universal, but is destined to the moment the wind should change. This re-
become so. Those who are saved here will fusal, on the same ground, was repeated day
join Christ in the air at his second coming, after day. Finally, Potter insisted that the wind
and will not be called to judgment. The spirits would not change until Murray should have de-
of those who die unsaved will wander in disqui- livered his message. A conditional appoint-
etude till Christ's coming, when they will be ment was made; Murray preached in Potter's
brought to judgment, and their sins will be sep- church, the wind changed, and the ship immedi-
arated from them. Thereupon the Book of Life, ately set sail." — Life of John Murray, ch. v.
THE CENTURY OF UNIVERSALISM. 485
he had been a preacher of Rellyism in his native country, it was his de-
liberate purpose to permit his voice to be heard in public no more. But
" while man appoints, God disappoints." No sooner had he once spoken to
the people on these shores than his services were in pressing demand. Pos-
sessed of marked abilities, a vivid imagination, a warm heart and ready wit,
he was everywhere heard with intensest pleasure. Having spent nearly two
years in New York, Philadelphia, and the principal towns around and
between those cities, Mr. Murray, in the fall of 1772, visited New England,
preaching in various towns in Connecticut, and in both Providence and
Newport, Rhode Island.1 His contemplated visit to Boston was prevented
by the approach of winter, which he spent in revisiting the scenes of his
previous labors, and journeying as far south even as Maryland. In the
autumn of 1773 he returned to New England, rejected an invitation to
abide in Newport, preached in East Greenwich and Providence, arriving in
Boston October 26 of the same year. This was his first visit to the metrop-
olis of New England. His already great fame had preceded him. His first
discourse in Boston was delivered in the hall of the Manufactory House, — a
large building opposite the site on which Park-Street Church now stands.2
Among his earliest acquaintances here was Thomas Handasyde Peck, who
rendered him great assistance and opened his dwelling-house for public
worship. Mr. Murray became still more widely known by journeying to
Newburyport and as far as Portsmouth, New Hampshire, preaching in vari-
ous pulpits in both these places. On returning to Boston he again preached
in the Manufactory House, in Faneuil Hall, and in the meeting-house of
the Rev. Mr. Croswell, of whom Mr. Peck, just mentioned, was a chief sup-
porter. This house was situated on School Street, on the lot next east of
1 " On his way to Newport on horseback, rather ludicrous, we will, if you please, dismiss
Mr. Murray held a characteristic conversation, the subject." — 'No, sir, I do not mean to be
He fell in with one Rev. Mr. Hopkins, of New- ludicrous; I am very serious.' — 'Well, sir, if
port, who, in reply to a remark of Mr. Murray, so, then I beg leave to ask, What is it I am to
said : ' If such be your views, you know nothing believe, the believing of which will save me ? ' —
at all of gospel.' — ' You could not so absolutely ' That Jesus Christ made it possible for sinners
determine this matter if you yourself were not ac- to be saved.' — ' By what means?' — 'By believ-
quainted with the meaning of the term " gospel." ing.' — ' Believing what ? ' — ' That.' — ' What ? '
Tell me then, sir, if you please, what is gospel ? ' — 'That Jesus Christ made it possible for sinners
— ' Why, sir, this is gospel : " He that believeth to be saved.' — 'By what means is it possible
shall be saved ; and he that believeth not shall that sinners maybe saved?' — 'By believing, I
be damned." ' — ' Indeed, sir, I had thought the tell you.' — ' But the devils ! will their believing
literal, simple meaning of the term " gospel " was save them ? ' — ' No, sir.' — ' Suppose I believe
glad tidings. Which part of the passage you that Jesus Christ made it possible to save sin-
have cited is gospel, — that which announces sal- ners, will that save me?' — ' No, sir.' — 'Then,
vation,or that which announces damnation .<" — sir, let me ask, What am I to believe, the be-
' Well, then, if you please, this is gospel: "He lieving of which will save me?' — 'Why, sir,
that believeth shall be saved."' — 'Believeth you must believe the gospel, that Jesus made it
what, sir?' — 'That.' — 'What, sir?' — 'That, I possible for sinners to be saved.' — 'But by
tell you.' — 'What, sir?' — 'That, I tell you, "He what means?' — 'By believing.' — 'Believing
that believeth shall be saved." ' — ' Bdievethwhat, what?' — ' That, I tell you.'" — Life of John
sir? What is he to believe?' — 'Why, that, I Afitrray, pp. 247-48.
tell you.' — ' I wished, sir, to treat this investi- 2 Life of John Murray, p. 284. [See also
gation seriously, but as you seem disposed to be Vol. II. of this History, pp. xxvi. and 511. — ED.]
486
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
the School-Street block, on which the meeting-house of the Second Univer-
salist Society recently stood.1 Subsequently he again journeyed south, and
in the spring of 1774 turned his face northward, reaching Boston again in
September of that year. During the autumn he preached at the Manufac-
tory House, in the dwelling-house of his friend, Mr. Peck, and at Faneuil
Hall. Such crowds attended upon his ministry as led many of the proprie-
tors of Mr. Croswell's meeting-house to solicit him to minister therein. The
house was opened to him against the wishes of Mr. Croswell, who violently
opposed him, and on subsequent occasions endeavored to prevent him from
entering the pulpit. Mr. Murray was even assailed with vituperation by Mr.
Croswell and others, to whom he replied with such calmness and Chris-
1 Life of John Murray, p. 291.
THE CENTURY OF UNIVERSALISM. 487
tian dignity as most favorably to affect the public mind. So riotous, how-
ever, were his opponents that on a subsequent occasion, on entering the
pulpit, —
" He found that the cushions had been sprinkled with a noxious drug, the strong
effluvia from which almost prevented his speaking. In the midst of the service many
stones were violently thrown through the windows, and much alarm was excited. . . .
Lifting one of these, weighing about a pound and a half, and waving it in view of the
people, he remarked, ' This argument is solid and weighty, but it is neither rational
nor convincing.' Though earnestly besought to leave the pulpit, as his life was in
danger, he steadfastly refused, declaring himself immortal while any duty remained to
him on earth. In this scene culminated the riotous opposition to Universalism in
Boston." l
Visiting Gloucester on November 3, he preached several times at the
request of the deacons and elders of the principal parish ; but opposition
was at length raised against him from the pastor and others. So violent did
this opposition become, partly on account of his Universalism, partly be-
cause he was an Englishman, that attempts were made to drive him from,
the town. His friends, however, proved as devoted as his enemies were
virulent.
The War of the Revolution opened. Mr. Murray, in May, 1775, was
appointed chaplain to the Rhode Island brigade. The other chaplains
of the army united in petitioning General Washington for his removal,
and were answered in the General Orders of the next day, Sept, 17, 1775,
appointing the Rev. John Murray chaplain to the three Rhode Island regi-
ments, and commanding that he be respected accordingly. Mr. Murray,
very unwisely as General Washington thought, returned the commission
forwarded to him, earnestly requesting permission to continue in the army
as a volunteer.2
On leaving the army he returned to his friends in Gloucester, who organ-
ized a society in January, 1779. Shortly after this a controversy arose of
great importance in respect to the maintenance of Universalist societies
in any part of the Commonwealth. It involved the right of the people to
appropriate their contributions for public worship to such religious teachers
as they might choose, being delivered at the same time from the payment
of taxes to the old parishes. The subject was hotly contested. Goods and
chattels were seized by an officer for parish taxes, and sold at public auction.
Legal steps were then instituted to recover the moneys thus distrained.
The result was long doubtful. The trial was begun in 1783, and continued
with various fortune till 1786. The decision was favorable to Mr. Murray,
in whose name the suit was brought, and to his friends, who were the real
plaintiffs in the case. The judge, holding for some time an adverse view,
became clearly in favor of the broadest religious liberty; and the jury, after
an all-night session, returned a verdict for the plaintiff. This decision opened
1 Life of John Murray, ch. vi. 2 Life of yohn Murray, p. 317.
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
the way for the establishment of Universalist parishes, free from all legal
disabilities.1
Before speaking of the organization of churches in Boston, to which the
foregoing was but so many preparatory steps, I must call attention to an
incident connected with the First Church, of which the Rev. Rufus Ellis,
D.D., is now pastor. Dr. Charles Chauncy, its pastor at the time of the
above-mentioned struggles, then nearly eighty years of age, had thirty years
before undertaken a critical study of the Scriptures, particularly of St. Paul's
Epistles, with such helps as he could command from either side of the At-
lantic. To his surprise he found Universalism to be the doctrine therein
taught. The result of these studies was a manuscript work entitled The
Salvation of All Men, about the publication of which he for a long time
hesitated. In 1782, a pamphlet upon the subject, commonly attributed to
him, appeared anonymously in Boston and aroused violent prejudice, call-
ing forth pointed attacks from various quarters, among which those of Dr.
Samuel Mather, of Boston, and Dr. Gordon, of Roxbury, were conspicuous.
Thereupon Dr. Chauncy sent his principal work to London,2 where it ap-
peared anonymously in 1784. To this work, tedious in many of its details,
though on the whole able, the younger President Edwards, in 1790, pub-
lished a vigorous but undiscriminating reply.3
Meantime the First Universalist Church in Boston had been organized.
The public heart, so deeply stirred in various ways, was ready to embody
in visible form its protest against long-standing barbarisms. On Dec. 25,
1785, a meeting-house on the corner of Hanover and North Bennet streets
was purchased by Shippie Townsend, James Prentiss, Jonathan Stoddard,
John Page, and Josiah Snelling, for the small society of Universalists
gathered under the labors of Mr. Murray, largely aided by the Rev. Adam
Streeter. This was the church in which the Rev. Samuel Mather, already
mentioned as an opponent of Mr. Murray, had ministered down to the time
of his death. It was erected in 1741, — the year in which Mr. Murray was
born, — and was enlarged by its new proprietors in 1792; repaired and
further enlarged in 1806, during which the society worshipped in Faneuil
Hall; again repaired and to some extent remodelled in 1824 and 1828, and
demolished in 1838, preparatory to the erection of the present brick edifice
on the same spot, dedicated Jan. I, 1839. The last service in it was held
June 24, 1838, the Rev. Sebastian Streeter discoursing to an audience filling
the house to repletion, from Ps. Ixxvii. 1 1 : "I will remember the works of
the Lord; surely I will remember thy wonders of old."4
This little band of sturdy believers, happily sheltered in their new Sun-
day home, was ministered to regularly by the Rev. George Richards, though
1 Life of John Murray, pp. 324-36. * Most of these and kindred facts in the
2 [One reason was that no printing office in sketch of parishes are gathered directly or in-
Boston had the Greek or other necessary type, directly from parish records, — quite too meagre
See Belknap Papers, \. 172.— ED.] in incident, — and need not be specially referred
8 Modern History of Universalism, edition of to. Those here stated will be found in the Life
1830, pp. 347-51. of John Murray, p. 339.
THE CENTURY OF UNIVERSALISM.
489
various other preachers, among whom Mr. Murray was conspicuous, were oc-
casionally heard. Though settled at Gloucester Mr. Murray continued his
travels far and near, cheering believers, confirming the doubting, comforting
the sorrowing, and extending the blessings of the kingdom. Seven or eight
years were thus spent, when the Boston society called Mr. Murray to be its
pastor. He was installed Oct. 24, 1793, by Deacon Oliver W. Lane, as the
record states, " in a very appropriate and affecting manner." This proved
to be a most happy and useful pastorate, continuing uninterrupted during
twenty-two years, till the death of Mr. Murray, Sept. 3, 1815. In the later
THE FIRST UNIVERSALIST MEETING-HOUSE.
period of his life, weighed down by almost insupportable infirmities, he was
carried into the pulpit in the arms of his devoted friends, and, seated in his
easy chair, delivered his messages of grace.
Few men have possessed such powers of persuasion as did he. To
quick sensibilities, strong, pure, and enduring domestic affections, a breadth
and fulness of Christian love that nothing could either repress or limit, were
joined great penetration, an intuitive knowledge of human nature, and the
most exuberant cheerfulness. Such qualities command the confidence of
men, awaken their affections, and purify their hearts. Such qualities
enabled him, when but a young man, to throw himself into the midst of a
London mob during the Wilkes troubles, hush the clamor, soothe the
rioters, and save many valuable lives, besides much property. A noble-
man seizing him by the hand impressively said, "Young man, I thank you.
I am ignorant of your name; but I bear testimony to your wonderful
VOL. in. — 62.
490
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
abilities. By your exertions much blood and treasure have this night been
saved." l
So great were the infirmities of Mr. Murray that for some years before
his death an assistant was employed. The Rev. Edward Mitchell, of New
York, became colleague, Sept. 12,
1810, and filled that office till
Oct- 6- l8ir- He was succeeded
by the Rev. Paul Dean, — an elo-
quent and ambitious man whom we shall again have occasion to mention, —
October, 1813, who became sole pastor after the death of Mr. Murray, con-
tinuing till April 6, 1823. May 13, 1824, the Rev. Sebastian Streeter, of
saintly memory, entered upon his charge of the parish. This proved far
the longest and most fruitful of all the pastorates which the church enjoyed.
For nearly thirty years he went
in and out before them as their
sole pastor, — a truly apostolic
presence. Often did his eloquent ministrations deeply touch the hearts of
parents as they brought their babes to the altar for christening; of the
mourning, as bending over their dead he unveiled to them the life immor-
tal; and of the glad assemblages gathered to witness the solemn inter-
change of marriage vows. Of these last alone more than thirty-five
hundred couples received his patriarchal benediction. Among the means
of usefulness in this church the Friday-evening prayer-meeting ever held
a conspicuous place.
In Mr. Streeter's advancing age it became necessary to relieve him of
some of the more active duties of the pastorate. The Rev. Sumner Ellis
was installed as colleague, Nov. 11, 1851, and resigned the office, Dec. 25,
1853. He was succeeded by the Rev. Noah M. Gaylord, who was installed
March 14, 1855, and continued, excepting a brief interval, to minister until
his resignation, Oct. 28, 1860. Both these young men brought excellent
talents to the service of the church. Mr. Ellis, then quite young, has since
risen to a position of influence, whence with voice and pen he greatly pro-
motes the kingdom of Christ. Mr. Gaylord, after a term of service in the
army, died in the full vigor of manhood.
The lack of outward prosperity in the church during their connection
with it is attributable to causes quite beyond their control. The old North
End, once the principal part of the city and the seat of all its great inter-
ests, had come to be occupied chiefly by a foreign-born population, from
whose presence the former residents had in large numbers retired. This
social revolution greatly affected the Protestant churches in general of that
locality, and the First Universalist Church was no exception. For a year
following Mr. Gaylord's resignation the church was closed. At length,
however, services were resumed in the lecture-room, Nov. 3, 1861, which
were so largely attended that on December 29 they were transferred to the
1 Life of John Murray, p. 381.
THE CENTURY OF UNIVERSALISM.
491
auditorium. The ministry of the Rev. Thomas W. Silloway, under whom
this success was achieved, closed May 29, 1864, when the parish yielded to
the inevitable. Its entire history covered a period of about seventy-nine
years, which was mainly prosperous. The only other exception was an epi-
sode connected with the ministry of Mr. Dean, which we shall have occa-
sion hereafter to notice. Mr. Murray's ministry continued about twenty-
two years, Mr. Streeter's forty years, and the others a little over an average
of four years each. Mr. Streeter died, June 2, 1867, at the age of eighty-
four years.
During Mr. Mitchell's ministry with the First Church as colleague an
act of incorporation, bearing date Feb. 27, 181 1, was secured for a Univer-
salist parish in Charlestown. The first meeting was held at the Town Hall,
March 14, 1811. The officers chosen were Moses Hall, chairman; Thomas
J. Goodwin, clerk; Samuel Thompson, treasurer; Benjamin Adams, collec-
tor; who with the following gentlemen constituted the standing commit-
tee,— namely, John Kettell, John Tapley, Timothy Thompson, Otis Clapp,
Henry Van Voorhis, Isaac Smith, Josiah Harris, Andrew Roulstone, and
Barnabas Edmands. The contract for a church edifice previously made by
the leading friends of the movement was assumed by the society ; and the
Rev. Abner Kneeland of Langdon, New Hampshire, was invited to the pas-
torate, at ten dollars a week, with the rent of a dwelling-house and the
expense of removing his family. The dedication took place Sept. 5, 1811,
the sermon being given by the Rev. Edward Mitchell, of- Boston. In the
afternoon of the same day Mr. Kneeland was installed, — the Rev. Hosea
Ballou, of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, preaching the sermon, the Rev.
Thomas Jones, of Gloucester, " delivering the Scriptures " and giving the
charge, and the Rev. Edward Turner, of Salem, extending the fellowship
of the churches. The day closed with a social entertainment to the Council
and invited guests.
The church had a long line, with rare exceptions, of most worthy men.1
1 The list of pastors is the following : ^rf * -^—^ s C~~\
Abner Kneeland, from September, 1811, / S^y^*^^ ^^ ^r^ ^ ^^ j~ r^^
to January, 1814; Edward Turner, from ^^ C •
March, 1814, to March, 1823 ; Winchester, from September, 1824, to March, 1825 ; Calvin Card-
ner.from June, 1825, to December, 1826; John Samuel Thomp-
son, from March, 1827, to April, 1828 ;
Linus S. Everett, from November, 1828,
to December, 1834 ; Thomas F. King,
from December, 1835, to September,
1839; Edwin H. Chapin, from Decem-
ber, 1840, to November, 1845 5
Thomas Starr King, from Au-
gust, 1846, to October, 1848;
Robert Townly,
492
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Mr. Kneeland proved unstable in the faith, and soon fell away into Deism
and at length into Atheism ; Mr. Thompson proved too eccentric for wide
usefulness ; Messrs. Turner, Gardner, Everett, the elder King, the eloquent
Chapin, the brilliant younger King, the quaint Scotchman Laurie, with his
faithful successors, were all men of weight, ability, and great usefulness.
The church to which they ministered early took high rank among the
Universalist churches of the land, and has steadily held it to the present
hour. Throughout the seventy years of its history it has numbered many
men of high social standing, of large business abilities, of prominent political
positions and influence, and of eminence in moral worth and Christian char-
acter. With no diminution of religious interest, the church, under the lead
of its present able pastor, gives promise of a future as rich in the fruits of
the Spirit as has been its honorable past.
Mr. Murray's Universalism, it has already been remarked, was of the
Rellyan or Calvinistic type. It differed from pure Calvinism chiefly in mak-
ing the Atonement universal, and therefore, according to Calvinistic prin-
ciples, universally effective. Christ was the head of every man, and redemp-
tion, though not salvation, was an accomplished fact. Five or six years
after his settlement in Boston, an incident occurred which was destined to
have a most important influence upon the fortunes of Universalism in gen-
eral. Mr. Murray made a journey to the South as far as Philadelphia.
During his absence the Rev. Hosea Ballon was engaged to supply his pulpit
ten Sundays. Mr. Ballou was then a young man under thirty years of age.
Born in Richmond, New Hampshire, April 30, 1771, educated or brought up
in the Baptist church with which he early united, and led through his great
love of spiritual things to an earnest study of the holy Scriptures, he entered
into the joy of the Universalist's hope in 1789, when but eighteen years
of age. But the philosophy of that hope, as then currently held, was far
from being satisfactory to his penetrating mind.1 Both the doctrine of the
Trinity and the then current doctrine of the Atonement soon came under
examination, resulting in their rejection by him as early as 1795. He be-
lieved that Christ was a special messenger from God, his only begotten Son,
and hence subordinate to the Father. His death was not an infliction of
penalty due to fallen man, but a voluntary sacrifice of himself in testimony
of infinite love, intended to secure an at-onc-mcnt between God and man, —
a reconciliation of man to God. It is probable that the fanciful views of
from June, 1849, to June, 1852 ; Alexander G. William T. Stowe, from
May, 1871, to February, «^/
1878 ; and Charles Fol-
len Lee, the present pastor, was settled Jan. 7,
1879.
Laurie, from November, 1853, to July, 1863; ' Mrs. Murray concedes that at the time of
her husband's death his peculiar faith was held
J-* ./~* only by the Rev. John Tyler, Episcopal min-
*"* ^9 ister in Norwich, Conn., and the Rev. Edward
/ Mitchell, of the city of New York. Life of John
Oscar F. Safford, from May, 1865, to July, 1870; Murray, Introduction, p. xiii.
THE CENTURY OF UNIVERSALISM. 493
Mr. Murray in regard to the judgment, in which he followed Relly, were
never accepted by Mr. Ballou. He had not as yet, however, come to recog-
nize the continually recurring judgments of God as involved in the current
retributions of life, of which at a later period he was fully convinced. He
regarded the whole work of man's salvation as fore-ordained through appro-
priate means. Believing God to be impartial in his parental love, he was
convinced that the decree of human salvation could not be other than
universal.
494 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
No sooner did his mind become clear upon the subjects of the Trinity
and the Atonement, than he hastened openly to avow his new convictions.
If there were others sympathizing with these views he was unaware of it,
since they made no appeal to the public. In this progress of his mind
Mr. Ballou was entirely destitute of human helps, resolving these problems
from the Scriptures alone. Meantime, he had been excommunicated from
the Baptist church, and ordained to the Universalist ministry.1 Unsolicited,
and without previous notice to Mr. Ballou, at the session of the General
Convention in Oxford, 1794, the Rev. Elhanan Winchester, at the con-
clusion of a sermon of great power and warmth, turned to Mr. Ballou, who
was in the pulpit with him, and with a few appropriate remarks thrust the
Bible against his breast, saying to the Rev. Joab Young, " Brother Young,
charge him." The charge was given, and the ordination was complete.
Such was the young man who in 1798 or 1799 supplied Mr. Murray's
desk for ten consecutive weeks. His remarkable familiarity with the Word
of God, his wonderful powers of reasoning, his profound insight into the
human heart, and his inexhaustible store of illustrations level to the com-
mon mind gave him a power over an assembly rarely equalled. He had a
large hearing in Boston. The public mind was greatly moved. On the last
day of his ministration he gave a very frank and clear explanation of his
new views touching Christ and the Atonement. By the suggestion of Mrs.
Murray, who was present, one Mr. Balch announced from the gallery that
what they had just heard was not the doctrine usually preached in that
pulpit; whereupon Mr. Ballou, in great calmness, called upon the audience
to take notice of what the brother had said.
The seed thus sown could not but bear fruit. To Mr. Murray, with his
Rellyism, Mr. Ballou's doctrines gave great pain. He deemed him to be
thinking and speaking with unwarrantable boldness. On the other hand,
the people were eager to hear more from a speaker at once so original,
so persuasive, so convincing. Overtures were made to him to bring him
to Boston ; but he could not be induced to take a step which might in any
degree result in the injury of Mr. Murray. The wishes of the people,
however, were by no means ephemeral. Many things conspired to keep
those desires alive. The people were not satisfied with the philosophy of
Christianity as commonly presented to them. Mr. Ballou was the most
original thinker with whom they had become acquainted. Though far re-
moved from them he was frequently heard from, and always in a way to
intensify their desire to have him in their midst. He was a member of the
General Convention in 1803 at Winchester, New Hampshire, when the Con-
fession of Faith,2 drawn by Walter Ferris, was adopted with such marked
1 Whittemore's Life of Ballou, vol. i., in ex- 2. " We believe that there is one God, whose
tenso. nature is love ; revealed in one Lord Jesus
2 It consisted of the three following articles : Christ, by one Holy Spirit of grace, who will
I. " We believe that the Holy Scriptures of finally restore the whole family of mankind to
the Old and New Testaments contain a revela- holiness and happiness.
tion of the character of God, and of the duty, 3. " We believe that holiness and true hap-
interest, and final destination of mankind. piness are inseparably connected ; and that be-
THE CENTURY OF UNIVERSAL1SM. 495
unanimity. In 1804 his work entitled Notes on the Parables of the New
Testament was published, and commanded such wide attention as to pass
through five or more editions. The first edition was printed at Randolph,
Vermont ; subsequent ones in Boston.
The work, however, destined to enhance his reputation in a far higher
degree as a Christian reasoner and interpreter of Christianity was published
the following year, 1805. Like the preceding work it was printed at
Randolph, Vermont, — the author being pastor of the united societies of
Barnard, Woodstock, Hartland, Bethel, and Bridgewater. It was entitled,
A Treatise on Atonement, in which the Finite Nature of Sin is Argued, its
Cause and Consequences as such ; the Necessity and Nature of Atonement, and
its Glorious Consequences, in the Final Reconciliation of All Men to Holiness
and Happiness. This work was extensively circulated and attentively read
in almost every Universalist family in the land. For scores of years after
its publication the author continued to receive letters of grateful acknowl-
edgment for the hopes it had begotten of a world's salvation. The work
has never been displaced. The views it presents are substantially the views
of the Universalist Church to-day, to which also the thought of Christendom
seems rapidly tending. Notwithstanding its direct antagonism to the doc-
trine of Mr. Murray, it was received among Boston Universalists with great
favor, and increased the impatience with which they awaited the author's
settlement among them.
More than a decade of years must pass, however, before this desire could
be fulfilled. At length the way was opened. On Dec. 13, 1816, the Gover-
nor signed an act incorporating the Second Society of Universalists in the
town of Boston. The first meeting of the Society was held Jan. 25, 1817.
From the first it was the purpose of the gentlemen united in this movement
to call Mr. Ballou to the pastorate. Having ministered some years in
Vermont and in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, he was now at Salem, Massa-
chusetts, with a much-loved parish which had suffered greatly from the
general depression in business then experienced. It was understood that,
Mr. Murray of the First Church having deceased, Mr. Ballou was not now
averse to heeding the wishes of his Boston friends. During the summer of
18173 meeting-house was erected in School Street, nearly opposite the
City Hall, on the site of the present School-Street block.1 In October of
that year it was dedicated, the Rev. Thomas Jones, of Gloucester, preaching
the sermon from John iv. 23. Mr. Ballou was absent in Vermont, fulfilling
an appointment previously made. The Rev. David Pickering offered the
lievers ought to be careful to maintain order in 1785, it is supposed his parish became ex-
and practise good works; for these things are tinct. In 1788 a Roman Catholic congregation,
good and profitable unto men." gathered three or four years before, obtained
1 This site in part is the precise spot on this house, and worshipped in it until they built
which the old French church formerly stood, the church in Franklin Street, which was dedi-
and in the pulpit of which Mr. Murray was cated in 1803. The old meeting-house in School
stoned in 1774. Built about 1715-20, it was sold Street was then taken down, and the land was
to the New Congregational Society, Mr. Cros- subsequently sold to the Second Universalist
well pastor, in 1748. On Mr. Croswell's death, Society. Whittemore's Life of Ballou, ii. 10.
496 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
introductory prayer, and the Rev. Edward Turner, of Charlestown, the dedi-
catory prayer. The Rev. Paul Dean, — at this time the sole pastor of the
First Church, — who was supposed not to look with much favor upon this
new movement, sat in the desk, but took no part, on account, it was said,
of ill health. The unanimous call of the society having been accepted by
Mr. Ballou, the installation took place December 25, the same year. The
Rev. Paul Dean preached the sermon from Acts xx. 24, and gave the right
hand of fellowship. The installing prayer and the charge were by the
Rev. Edward Turner ; and the Rev. Joshua Flagg, who had succeeded Mr.
Ballou at Salem, offered the concluding prayer. These services of dedi-
cation and installation revealed a profound interest in the new movement,
and showed that high expectation had taken possession of the public mind.
Such men as John Brazier, David Townsend, Edmund Wright, Daniel E.
Powars, Lemuel Packard, Jr., Levi Melcher, and John Trull, to name no
more, were a guarantee of the high character, solid strength, and immediate
success of the new society.
The high anticipations from Mr. Ballou's ministry were more than realized.
Such had been his peculiar exercise of mind that he had grown accus-
tomed to a much broader field of discussion than was common among his
brethren. His advanced positions in Biblical interpretation drew upon him
attacks from all quarters, which he repelled with a master hand.1 His
preaching became necessarily controversial. Many of his sermons, singly
and in volumes, were published and widely distributed. Letters and pam-
phlets of attack and reply appeared in rapid succession and through a
series of years. Majestic in person, calm in spirit, quick in penetration, and
affluent in a broad Christian common-sense, he often surprised his opponents
and awakened the keenest interest in his hearers by rending away at a single
1 His responses were of the keenest sort, see; I never thought that saving sinners was
An aged lady expressing surprise at his views, just making them morally clean."
added : " The good book says, — At a time when Dr. Lyman Beecher was con-
ducting a revival in his church on Bowdoin
'In Adam's fall we sinned all,"' ^^ and much comment had ^^ made jn
to which he replied: "Yes, and the same good respect to his visiting servant girls in the kitch-
book says, — ens, and urging them to his meetings, he met
Mr. Ballou, and told him that " he dreamed that
The cat doth play, and after slay.
he died and went to heaven ; and looking care-
On his way of a Saturday evening to a town fully about him, he failed to see a single Uni-
in Essex County, while waiting for a private versalist there." — " I suppose," said Mr. Ballou,
conveyance from the railway-station, he stepped " you only went into the kitchen."
into a cottage where he found a good woman On one occasion, being introduced to a vener-
washing her floor. She cordially welcomed him, able lady, she asked : "Are you Mr. Ballou, the
and entered at once into conversation. On learn- Universalist preacher?" On being answered af-
ing that her guest was Mr. Ballou, the Univer- firmatively, she further inquired : "Do you preach
salist preacher, she expressed surprise, and the gospel of the New Testament ?" He replied
inquired if he "really believed that all men that he "tried to preach it." — "But," said she,
would be saved?" — "Yes, I hope so." — "do you preach as the Saviour preached?" — "I
" What ! " said she, " is it possible that sinners try to," was the reply. " Do you preach, ' Woe
can be saved just as they are?" — "My good unto you Scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites'?" —
woman/' said he, " are you going to wash up "Ah, no ! " said he, " those people do not attend
your floor just as it is ?" — " Ah ! " said she, " I my meeting."
THE CENTURY OF UNIVERSALISM.
497
stroke, as it were, the veils of sophistry woven by error, and exposing that
error in its own naked deformity.
In 1819 Mr. Henry Bowen, a young man having just published a volume
of Lecture Sermons from the pen of Mr. Ballou, established the Universalist
Magazine, with Mr. Ballou as its editor. Within three years of that time the
Rev. Thomas Whittemore — a boot-maker's apprentice in State Street when
the publication began — became associate editor. Thenceforth Mr. Whit-
temore continued his editorial labors, amid whatever professional and other
burdens resting upon him, throughout his whole life.1 This Magazine was
the first Univer-
salist newspaper
published in this
country, and sup-
posed to be the
first in the world. Such was its inspiring influence that in 1824 there had
sprung into being no less than a dozen similar newspapers within the limits
of New England and the State of New York. At the end of nine years it
was transferred to the hands of the Rev. Russell Streeter, of Watertown,
and Thomas Whittemore, of Cambridgeport, and continued under the title
of The Trumpet and Universalist Magazine.
Among the numerous controversies into which Mr. Ballou was drawn,
those pertaining to the doctrine of future punishment were conspicuous.
While not at this time denying that doctrine, he had come to believe that
the Scriptures do not teach 'it. The full light of eternity, he believed, would
banish all love of sinning and win all souls to God, thus saving them, not
in their sins, but from their sins.2 The secret opposition which the pastor
of the First Church — the Rev. Paul Dean — felt to the Second-Church
movement became open and avowed in connection with this subject. The
1 Though Mr. Whittemore, afterward Dr.
Whittemore, was never the pastor of a church
in Boston, he rendered the cause in the city and
throughout the country most eminent service
both as a preacher and as an editor and author.
His works, among which may be mentioned his
Notes on the Parables, Plain Guide to Universal-
ism, Life of Hosea Ballou in four volumes, Mod-
ern History of Universalism, Commentary on
the Revelation, etc., were all written in a popu-
lar style, and exerted a wide influence. A man
of large administrative ability, democratic in
feeling and genial in spirit, he was emphatically
a man of the people. He died in Cambridge,
March 21, 1861, aged sixty-one years.
2 Few men have been the subjects of such
bitter calumny as Mr. Ballou. The doctrines of
"death and glory," "salvation in sin," "God
looking upon saint and sinner with equal appro-
bation," and the like were almost universally im-
puted to him by the pulpits of his and even later
time. The truth is, Mr. Ballou believed this to be
VOL. III. — 63.
the only world of temptation and of transgression ;
that God here, by outward and inward laws, by
means visible and invisible, justly and adequately
recompenses both the evil and the good; that
peace can be found only in righteousness, and
that when God shall appear men will become
like him, for they will see him as he is. Thus
those who leave this world unpurified will be
saved by moral means as really as those who are
saved in the flesh, — exposing him, therefore, no
more to the stigma of teaching "death and
glory" than does the welcoming of the penitent
murderer from the scaffold to heaven expose
the teachers who assailed Mr. Ballou to the
same stigma. He believed firmly in historic
Christianity, in the subordination of Christ to
the Father, in the manifestation of the Father's
universal love through Christ, in the miracles
he wrought, and in the ultimate efficiency of
his mission in the salvation of all souls. And
these are the views of the Universalist Church
to this day.
498 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
controversy was long and bitter. The sympathies of the Universalist pub-
lic were largely with Mr. Ballou. The First Church shared this feeling.
Mr. Dean, having withdrawn from it, April 6, 1823, became pastor of a
Third Universalist Church, which was located in Bulfinch Street, whither a
portion of the First Society followed him. The dedication of the meeting-
house and the installation of the pastor occurred on the same day, — May
7, 1823. Several brethren, among whom Mr. Dean held a conspicuous
place, put forth an "appeal" and "declaration," protesting publicly against
the views of Mr. Ballou, who, in conjunction with Hosea Ballou, 2d (his
grand-nephew), and Thomas Whittemore, made a most effective reply. Mr.
^^ Dean, at his own request, was dismissed
fry <2s4^L>f ^rf) £*^2^7^ ^rom fell°wship with the Universalist
body. Several of the gentlemen felt
the force of the reply, and were reconciled. A year later, in 1824, Mr. Dean
earnestly sought to be again received into fellowship. Some brethren
strongly opposed thereto were persuaded by Mr. Ballou to accede to the
request. They yielded with reluctance, and the sequel justified their hesi-
tation. The restorationist schism continued for some years, but the influ-
ence of Mr. Ballou remained unimpaired. It was quite otherwise with Mr.
Dean. After the lapse of a few years the Rev. Frederick T. Gray, Unitarian,
was called to the associate pastorate of the Bulfinch-Street Church, from
which Mr. Dean, for a consideration, a little later retired, and the church
ceased to be even nominally Universalist.1
1 " During the heat of the controversy between horrid doctrine.' — 'And what does he preach,
Mr. Ballou and Mr. Dean many interesting inci- sir, that is horrid?' — 'Oh, he holds that all
dents took place. Returning on one occasion men will go to heaven at once when they die.' —
from Nantucket, where he had spent some days, ' Well, sir, suppose they do; is that horrid ' ? Is
on reaching New Bedford Mr. Ballou found it not very desirable that all men shall become
himself in the stage-coach beside a stranger, who holy and happy ? ' — ' Ah, sir, but he holds that
introduced conversation with him. 'Are you men will go to heaven in their sins.11 — ' But, sir,
from Nantucket, sir ?' — 'I am,' replied Mr. you have confessed that you never heard him
Ballou. — 'Is there any news at the island?' — preach; how do you know he preaches in that
' I heard none,' said Mr. Ballou. ' There might manner ? ' — ' Oh, I have heard so, a thousand
be much news and I not hear of it.' — 'Ah! times.' — ' But you may have been misinformed,
well, they say old Ballou is down there preach- my friend. I am quite confident Mr. Ballou holds
ing; did you hear anything about him?' — 'He no such doctrine. If you were to put the question
has been preaching there, sir.' — 'Large congre- to him, I think he himself would say he held no
gations, I suppose; did you hear him, sir?' — such doctrine.' — ' I am surprised. Well, what
' I did, several times.' — ' Well, I don't like does he hold to, then ? ' — 'I think if he were
him; he's coarse in his preaching; he don't be- here, he would say he did not believe what you
lieve in any future punishment; he holds that have attributed to him, — that men are to go to
all men will go to heaven when they die, just as heaven in their sins. . . . He probably would
they leave this world ; I don't like him. There 's say he held that men are to be saved from their
Mr. Dean, — I think he's a very fine man, a gen- sins.' — ' Well, you seem to know. Will you
tleman ; I should like to hear him preach.' — let me ask where you live?' — 'I live in Bos-
1 Did you ever hear Mr. Ballou preach?' said ton, sir.' — 'Do you attend a Universalist
Mr. Ballou, very calmly. — ' No ! no, sir, I church ? ' — 'I do, sir.' — ' What church do
never heard him preach ; I have no desire to you attend, sir ? ' — 'I attend Mr. Ballou's, sir.'
hear him preach; but I should be gratified at — 'Are you intimately acquainted with Mr.
an opportunity to hear Mr. Dean. Did you ever Ballou, sir.' — ' My name is Hosea Ballou, my
hear Mr. Dean, sir ?' — ' Yes, sir, several times.' friend.' The stranger's confusion may be bet-
— 'Well, he's a fine man, sir, — a gentleman; ter imagined than described." — Whittemore's
but Ballou I do not like at all ; he preaches a Life of Ballon, ii. 247, 248.
THE CENTURY OF UNIVERSALISM.
499
A powerful impulse was given to the cause of Universalism during the
controversies above referred to by the writings of the Rev. Walter Balfour,
a man of remarkable originality and power. Before leaving Scotland, his
native country, he became acquainted with the late Rev. John Codman, D.D.,
long pastor of a church in Dorchester. Reaching New York in 1806, pro-
ceeding thence to Albany in company with the late Rev. Daniel Sharp,
D.D., whose life-long friendship he enjoyed, he settled in Charlestown in
1807. As a member of the school-board in 1825 he advocated the estab-
lishment of an English High and Latin school. The measure failed, as did
also the attempt to secure his re-election. Twenty-two years later the sug-
gestion was acted upon, and the school established.1 In connection with
the Rev. Dr. Morse, whose pulpit he often supplied, he organized the first
Bible-class established in Charles-
town. In 1808 he was appointed
to the chaplaincy of the prison,
which position he conscientiously
resigned on account of his change of views touching infant baptism.2 Con-
verted to Universalism by Professor Stuart's argument for the universal
worship of Christ, Mr. Balfour, in 1824, published his Inquiry into the Script-
ural Import of the Words Sheol, Hades, Tartarus, and Gehenna : all trans-
lated "Hell" in the Common English Version. In 1826 appeared his Second
Inquiry, designed to show that the terms " Satan," " Devil," etc., were not
used in the Bible to designate a specific being. These volumes were fol-
lowed in 1828 by Balfour's Essays ; in 1834, by Balfour's Reply to the Rev.
Bernard Whitman ; and in the same year by Ballou's Examination of the
Doctrine of Future Retribution. Notwithstanding these works were not
wholly accordant with each other in doctrine, they were most important
contributions to the elucidation of Christian truth, and exerted a very wide
influence.
While preachers of the0 gospel were multiplied, and one work after
another was sent forth from the press, the School-Street Church continued
to be the Mecca of the Universalist Zion. Mr. Ballon was listened to by
visitors and business men from all parts of the country, and the seeds of
truth were thus scattered far and wide. The men who started with him in
the Christian race were falling under the weight of years ; but those who
still survived were noble specimens of Christian manhood.
When at length it became necessary to select a colleague for Mr. Ballou,
new dangers opened in the pathway of the society. Two candidates, the
Revs. T. C. Adam and H. B. Soule, were heard for several months each,
neither of whom received the requisite two-thirds vote of the parish. On
his retirement from the candidacy, one of them, the Rev. T. C. Adam, fol-
lowed by a portion of the society, opened meetings in a chapel in Chardon
Street. So apparent was his unworthiness that he soon withdrew. Having
organized a society and enjoyed the brief ministrations of several clergy-
1 Letter of his son, D. M. Balfour. 2 Mass. State Prison, by Gideon Haynes, p. 19.
500 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
men, the chief supporters abandoned the movement, many of them return-
ing to the School-Street Church, and the enterprise soon failed altogether.
Finally the School-Street parish called the Rev. E. H. Chapin, D.D., of
Charlestown, to the associate pastorate. The installation took place Jan.
28, 1846, Mr. Ballou preaching the sermon. After two years of marked
prosperity under the ministrations of this eloquent divine, the parish very
reluctantly accepted his resignation, and he removed to New York city. He
was immediately succeeded by the Rev. A. A. Miner, of Lowell, both gen-
tlemen entering on their new pastorates May i, 1848. Mr. Miner was in-
stalled May 31, Dr. Chapin preaching the sermon, and Mr. Ballou offering
the installing prayer.
The relations of both of these juniors with their senior were marked by
the most affectionate cordiality and profound respect.1 On the death of
Mr. Ballou, — which occurred June 7, 1852, — Mr. Miner became sole pastor,
which relation he still holds. The office of President of Tufts College hav-
ing become vacant by the death of Hosea Ballou, 2d, D.D., May 27, 1861,
Mr. Miner was elected his successor, it being understood that his pastorate
would not be relinquished, though his parish generously excused him from
most of the pastoral labor. His inaugural address was delivered July 9,
1862. During the twelve and a half years of his Presidency more than
seven hundred thousand dollars were added to the funds of the College,
mostly by Boston men, and more than half of it by members of his parish.
Jan. 2, 1867, the Rev. Rowland Connor was installed as colleague pastor,
Dr. Miner preaching the sermon. Mr. Connor held that office about five
months. Dismissed because of his rejection of the authority of Christ, he
had quite a following to Mechanics Hall, where he soon conspicuously
failed, most of his adherents returning to the parish. June 3, 1868, the
Rev. Henry I. Cushman was installed as colleague, Dr. Miner again preach-
ing the sermon. During the nearly seven years of his most faithful service
Mr. Cushman won for himself the marked esteem both of his senior and of
•
the society. In 1851 the parish remodelled its church in School Street, at a
cost of about twenty thousand dollars; and in 1872 there was erected in its
place, for business purposes, a building now known as the School-Street
Block, the fee of which, after several changes in the circumstances of the
tenure, is in the parish. Its fine new stone church on Columbus Avenue,
corner of Clarendon Street, was built the same season, at a cost of about
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and dedicated Dec. 5, 1872, the
1 Since the above text was written, Dr. Cha- memory. In the Columbus-Avenue Universalist
pin has closed his earthly labors, terminating Church, Boston, memorial services were held
one of the two senior Universalist pastorates, on Sunday, January 9, in the presence of an im-
He died in New York, Dec. 26, 1880. His fune- mense throng, in which the Rev. Messrs. Safford
ral was a remarkable occasion. Denominational and Lee, Drs. Sawyer, Adams, and Miner, the
barriers were utterly broken down. Drs. Pullman Governor of the Commonwealth, John D. Long,
and Capen, Universalists, the Rev. Robert Coll- and the Mayor of the city, F. O. Prince, bore
yer, Unitarian, the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, most affectionate testimony to Dr. Chapin's
Congregationalist, and the Rev. Dr. Armitage, Christian character, matchless eloquence, and
Baptist, joined in paying the highest honors to his ministerial fidelity.
THE CENTURY OF UNIVERSALISM.
501
dedicatory address being delivered by Dr. Miner, and the prayer being
offered by Mr. Cushman.
The first Universalist sermon preached in Roxbury was by the Rev.
Elhanan Winchester, in 1798, in the parish church, by invitation of the
pastor. Nov. 29, 1818, the Rev. Hosea Ballou preached in the Town Hall.
COLUMBUS- A VENUE CHURCH.
The first Universalist society in Roxbury was organized March 2, 1820.
Forty-three men good and true petitioned for the charter. Samuel Parker
was chosen moderator of the first meeting, and Luther Newell clerk. The
spacious and imposing edifice in which the society still worships was erected
on a portion of the Dudley estate, and on the precise site of the mansion
502
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
occupied by the Governors Dudley. The old family well in the cellar still
remains. This site, costing one thousand dollars, is said now to be worth
one hundred thousand dollars. Messrs. William Hannaford, Edward Turner,
Lewis Morse, Jacob Allen, Warren Marsh, Joseph Stratton, and Elisha
Wheeler were chosen a committee, May 15, and charged with the responsi-
bility of building. September 14, a parish meeting urged the committee
to finish the house as soon as possible. It was dedicated Jan. 4, 1821, the
Rev. Hosea Ballou preaching the sermon.1 The Rev. Hosea Ballou, 2d, was
the first pastor, and was installed July 26,
^7%v 1821, the Rev. Paul Dean preaching the ser-
^7 77 mon, and Mr. Ballou, of Boston, giving the
charge. The present pastor, speaking of the
first incumbent, says: "For the solidity, the spirituality, the even prosper-
ity of this parish through all these years we are largely indebted to his
eminently careful, faithful, and judicious leadership in the beginning of
its history."2 On Jan. 4, 1822, a church, consisting of twenty-two most
worthy members, was publicly recognized. Mr. Ballou resigned the pasto-
rate April 28, 1838; and at the semi-centennial anniversary of the church
all the original twenty-two members, as also its pastor, had " entered into
the promised inheritance." There have been few if any men in the Univer-
salist ministry in Boston or elsewhere, throughout the entire history of the
church, who for solid learning, moral and Christian worth, great personal
weight, and permanent influence in moulding our whole body into fair pro-
portions, and stimulating it to an increased activity in the cause of educa-
tion, are worthy of higher honor or deeper gratitude than is the Rev. Hosea
Ballou, 2d, D.D. Most fitting was it that the closing years of his useful life
should be spent in the duties of the Presidency of Tufts College, in which
office he died May 27, 1861, aged sixty- four years.3
The Universalist Society of South Boston is the fifth of the churches
organized in that part of the city. The population in 1830 was barely
three thousand. The access from Boston proper was extremely unpleasant.
The Federal-Street bridge had been built two years before. On the last of
April, 1830, Elijah Harris, Joseph Harris, Jr., Dr. Ebenezer Stevens, Samuel
Burnham, William Andrews, and Isaiah Josselyn (who alone survives) met
at the house of one Mr. Holmes, corner of Fourth Street and Dorchester
1 'Semi-Centennial Memorial, p. 8.
2 Ibid., p. 14.
8 The pastorate of the Roxbury parish has
been fjlled by other most worthy men in the fol-
lowing order: The Rev. Asher Moore, from
January, 1839, to January, 1840; the Rev.
Cyrus H. Fay, from January, 1841, to March,
1849; the Rev. William IT. Ryder, from 1849,
to January, 1859; the Rev. J. G. Bartholomew,
from July, 1860, to January, 1866; and the Rev.
A. J. Patterson, from September, 1866, to the
present time. Through all these years the par-
ish has enjoyed uninterrupted prosperity, and
vindicated its Christian aims by large sacrifices
both in its own immediate field of labor and in
the interests of the general Church. The cler-
gymen who have led in this work, several of
whom have also won laurels in other fields, will
ever be cherished in affectionate remembrance.
THE CENTURY OF UN1VEKSALISM. 503
Avenue, and associated themselves 'as the Fourth Universalist Society of
Boston.1 The Rev. Benjamin Whittemore, of Troy, New York, son-in-law
of the Rev. Hosea Ballou, ^
and a young man of great t£*£^i^ 's'^S ^
promise, who in later years ^^
became a Doctor of Divin- &
ity, and who still survives in a ripe old age, preached in a hall opposite Mr.
Holmes's house. May 9, 1830, having accepted an invitation to become
pastor of the new society, he entered upon the duties of that office July 18
of the same year. On May 30, 1831, an accession to the parish was re-
ceived of fifty-one men, of whom two only now survive.2 Worship was
continued in Harding's Hall until the completion of the church edifice on
Broadway, corner of B Street, which was dedicated April 10, 1833, the Rev.
Hosea Ballou preaching the sermon, and the pastor offering the dedicatory
prayer. The long-deferred installation of the pastor took place on the
afternoon of the same day, — the Revs. Thomas Whittemore, Hosea Ballou,
Hosea Ballou, 2d, Sebastian Streeter, Matthew Hale Smith, and Lucius R.
Paige,3 rendering the various services. After thirteen years of most faith-
ful and efficient ministration, the
a^e and rnuch-loved pastor, in
Apri1' l843' resigned his pasto~
rate, and was succeeded the fol-
lowing autumn by the Rev. T. D. Cook. During his pastorate several
thousands of dollars were expended in alterations in the meeting-house
to gain suitable accommodations for the Sunday School, which has ever
been an important auxiliary of the church.4
The Fifth Universalist Society, now Shawmut, was organized Jan. 10,
1836, and has been among the most influential in the city. The Rev. Otis
A. Skinner, a man of pure life, of marked ability, fine presence, and peculiar
suavity of manner, was installed as pastor Jan. 26, 1837, and resigned May
I, 1846. The Rev. J. S. Dennis was pastor from January, 1847, to August,
1848, when Mr. Skinner served a second term, from January, 1849, to April,
1 The Christian Leader, July 15, 1880. well, from 1860 to 1862; the Rev. I. C. Knowl-
2 Semi-Centennial Discourse, by the Rev. J. ton, from 1863 to 1865; when, after an interim
J. Lewis. of two years, the present pastor, the Rev. J. J.
3 The Rev. Lucius R. Paige, D.D., has ren- Lewis, took up the work in September, 1867.
dered great service to the Universalist Church Meantime, the outbreak of our civil war had
both as a preacher and author. His Selections disturbed the harmony of the parish, leading to
from Eminent Commentators, 1833, and his Com- the abandonment of the church in 1864 for
mentary on the entire New Testament, except the Lyceum Hall, which was occupied till the dedi-
Revelation of St. John, of which the first volume cation of the present beautiful and commodious
was published in 1849, are especially valuable, church on the heights of Broadway about 1870.
He has also become widely known by his History To the sterling character of the entire line of pas-
of Cambridge, and by the conspicuous positions tors must in no small measure be attributed the
he has most worthily filled. unexampled self-sacrifice, considering its quite
4 Mr. Cook, having resigned in 1851, was limited resources, through which the parish two
succeeded by the Rev. Calvin Damon, who min- or three years ago removed its entire debt of
istered till 1855. The Rev. W. W. Dean was nearly $20,000, giving it a better outlook than it
pastor from 1855 to 1860; the Rev. J. S. Cant- has ever before enjoyed.
504 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
1857. During this period he rendered our general church the very great ser-
vice of raising the funds —
about one hundred thous-
and dollars, including a land
gift — for the founding of
Tufts College, named from Mr. Charles Tufts, the donor of the land. Mr.
Skinner died in Illinois, Sept. 18, 1861. The Rev.
T. B. Thayer, D.D., was installed pastor, Dec. 2,
f _ si "— i/ '
UL\ (V X-4/yist^C^/
1857, the Rev. Dr. Chapin, of New York city,
preaching the sermon. The parish was first free of debt, March 5, i860.1
In April, 1863, the Church of the Paternity united with the Fifth Society,
with which its relations had always been cordial, forming the Shawmut Uni-
versalist Society. During the first two or three years of its history the
Fifth Society worshipped in Boylston Hall. Its church edifice on Warren
Street, now the Jewish Synagogue on Warrenton Street, was dedicated
Jan. 30, 1839, and occupied by the Fifth Society until the union as above,
when possession was taken of the Shawmut Church on Shawmut Avenue,
near Brookline Street. This church was purchased of the Congregational
society, of which the Rev. Dr. Webb is pastor, and was re-dedicated, April
20, I8642
On Noddle's Island, now East Boston, previous to 1830, there was but a
single residence.3 In 1840, so rapid had been the growth of the island,
there was a small Universalist society
-_ worshipping in the old
bath-house, where Win-
throp Block now stands,
and enjoying the minis-
trations of various cler-
gymen. The Rev. Sylvanus Cobb, afterwards Dr. Cobb, was pastor from
1841 to 1844, during which time a house of worship was erected on the
corner of Webster and Orleans streets. After two years of unsuccessful
ministration by the Rev. Alexander Hitchborn, Mr. Cobb again stepped
1 Several families from this parish and others resulting from an accident which befel him some
living at the South End organized the Canton- years previous, he resigned the pastorate, April
Street Society, and worshipped in a chapel on i, 1867, and gave himself more fully to the editor-
Shawmut Avenue, corner of Canton Street. It ship of The Universalist Quarterly and General
was succeeded in the same field by the Church Rminu, upon which he had entered in 1864, suc-
of the Paternity, organized March, 1859, and ceeding the Rev. Hosea Ballou, 2d, D.D., and
ministered to by the .Rev. E. C. Holies, after- which he still conducts with marked ability and
ward made Doctor of Philosophy, from Novem- to universal acceptance. He was succeeded in
ber, 1859, to January, 1861. Its meetings were the charge of the parish by the Rev. L. L. Briggs,
held in Concord-Street Chapel. Both these from November, 1867, to November, 1876; by
efforts were feeble, and commanded but a feeble the Rev. J. K. Mason, a graduate of Tufts Di-
following. vinity School, from November, 1876, to June,
2 On the same day the Rev. Sumner Ellis 1880; and by the Rev. Henry Blanchard, the
was installed associate pastor, which office he present pastor, a graduate of Tufts College, who
resigned in October, 1865. The sole pastorate entered upon his duties June i, 1880.
again devolved upon the Rev. Dr. Thayer. In 3 Semi-Ccntennial Discourse, by. the Rev. ].
consequence of the broken state of his health, J. Lewis.
THE CENTURY OF UNIVERSALISM.
505
forward to rescue the parish from its embarrassment, and ministered to it
from 1846 to I848.1 Meantime the church was abandoned, and worship
held in Ritchie Hall, in Jones's Hall, in the Webster-Street church again, in
Reed's Hall, and in Sumner Hall, until the erection of the present commo-
dious edifice, which was dedicated in December, i8662
The Universalists of Chelsea established public worship in Guild's Hall
in 1842, under the leadership of the Rev. A. P. Cleverly. At the end of
two years they removed to Gerrish Hall, where they continued from 1844
to 1850. Mr. Cleverly having terminated his ministry in November, 1844,
the Rev. Dr. Cobb preached for them about six months. A society was
organized April 21, 1845. The Rev. Eben Francis held the office of
pastor from April 30, 1845, to July 2, 1848. In December of the same
year the Rev. Charles H. Leonard3 entered upon the pastorate, and filled
the office for nearly twenty-one years, resigning in September, 1869.*
In 1858 the Rev. Sumner Ellis was employed by the Universalists of
Brighton, now Ward Twenty-five, to preach in Union Hall ; others were oc-
casionally heard. After two years' ministration a parish was organized Jan.
12, 1860, and a chapel erected, which was dedicated Aug. 7, i86i.5
1 Dr. Cobb, who died Oct. 31, 1866, at
sixty-eight years of age, was a man of massive
proportions, both physical and intellectual.
Founding the Christian Freeman and Family
Visitor, a religious and reformatory newspaper,
in 1839, at Waltham, he removed it to Boston
in 1841, and continued both its proprietor and
editor until its union with the Trumpet and Uni-
versal ist Magazine, in 1862, under the title of The
Trumpet and Christian Freeman, a Universalist
Magazine. In 1864 the name was changed to
The Universalist. In 1870 The Christian Re-
pository, Montpelier, Vermont, was joined with
it ; and in 1878, The Christian Leader, and the
united papers took the latter name.
2 In 1849 the Rev. Emmons Partridge be-
came pastor, and was followed by the Rev. C.
II. Webster, who closed his labors about 1853.
The Rev. A. St. John Chambre, afterward Dr.
Chambre', filled the pastorate during 1854 and
1855 ; the Revs. J. S. Barry, author of a His-
tory of Massachusetts, in three volumes, and J.
W. Talbot, till 1860. In 1863 the Rev. C. J.
White, a graduate of Tufts College, became
pastor, and the parish entered upon that career
of prosperity which gave it a new church in 1866,
and has continued, with little vicissitude, to the
present time. To the great regret of the entire
society, Mr. White resigned in December, 1870,
and was succeeded by the Rev. G. H. Vibbert
from 1871 to 1873; by the Rev. Selden Gilbert,
from 1874 to 1878, when began the labors of
the present pastor, the Rev. J. G. Adams, D.D.
The numbers, resources, and solidity of the
parish at present promise a future whose bright-
VOL. III. — 64.
ness will sharply contrast with the adversities of
its earlier years.
3 Mr. Leonard was elected in 1869 Goddard
Professor of Homiletics and Pastoral Theology
in Tufts Divinity School, which office he still
holds.
4 These were years of great prosperity for the
parish. It proceeded at once to the erection of a
church on Chestnut Street, which was dedicated
May 15, 1850; and such was the rapid growth
of the parish, that this church was replaced by a
larger and more commodious one on the same
site, which was dedicated July 10, 1862. The
Rev. William G. Tousey, B.D.,* was pastor from
April, 1870, to July, 1871 ; and the Rev. I. M.
Atwood,t from April, 1872, to November of the
same year. The present pastor, the Rev. A. J.
Canfield, was settled May i, 1873, and is listened
to regularly by large audiences.
5 The Rev. James Eastwood was pastor
from July, 1861, to July, 1864 ; the Rev. T. W.
Silloway, from July, 1864, to July, 1867; the
Rev. J. W. Keyes, from May, 1868, to Septem-
ber, 1869 ; the Revs. J. Edgar Johnson and W. A.
Start, a few months each ; the Rev. J. V. Wilson,
from April, 1872, to April, 1874 ; the Rev. J. G.
Adams, D.D., from October, 1876, to August,
1878. The present pastor, the Rev. B. F. Eaton,
began his ministry with the parish October, 1878.
* Mr. Tousey. in 1871, was called to the Professorship
of Psychology and Natural Theology in Tufts Divinity
School.
t Mr. Atwood. in 1879, succeeded the late Rev. Eben-
ezer Fi>her, D.I)., as the head of the Divinity School con-
nected with the St. Lawrence University, and subsequently
received the degree of Doctor of Divinity.
506 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
The Universalist Society of Jamaica Plain, now Ward Twenty-three, was
organized May 18, 1871. Its meeting-house, situated on Centre Street,
corner of Greenough Avenue, was purchased of the Congregational Society
the same month.1
The Grove Hall Universalist Parish was organized June 23, 1877. It
was not a branch of, or off-shoot from, any other church, but an independent
movement growing out of a Sunday-school organized about a year earlier
under the direction of the Boston Sunday-School Union. In the summer of
1877 a church was erected which, including the site, cost ten thousand
dollars. It was dedicated the following December2
The Dorchester Universalist parish, known as St. John's Church, was the
outgrowth of occasional preaching in Lyceum Hall on Meeting-house Hill,
and in the Old High-School house. Professor C. H. Leonard began min-
istering in the latter place February, 1874. The parish was organized when
possession was taken of the new chapel, Sept. 12, 1875, and Professor
Leonard continued its non-resident pastor till February, 1880. The present
pastor, the Rev. J. H. Weeks, a graduate both of Tufts College and Divinity
School, entered upon his work Feb. 8 of the same year.
It will be seen that the movement of the business centres during the
hundred years of the history of the Universalist Church, the mobility of the
population, and the necessarily empirical character of many of the efforts
incident to the founding of a new body of Christians have been the occasion
of many vicissitudes. But it is gratifying to note that the number of par-
ishes in Suffolk County, greater than at any former period, and strengthened
by the usual auxiliaries of Christian work, the cost and commodiousness
of the church edifices, the number, devotedness, and resources of the wor-
shippers, and their increasing interest in the cause of education and of
church extension are so many pledges of a future position and influence
of the Universalist body in a high degree gratifying.
To the agencies thus far noticed must be added the Universalist Publish-
ing-house, formerly located at 37 Cornhill, now at 16 Bromfield Street,
Boston. The several publishing interests, thitherto in private hands, were
purchased by a few devoted friends of the Church in 1862, and the profits
thenceforward consecrated to the general up-building of the Universalist
cause. Success attending the enterprise, an act of incorporation was secured
in May, 1872. Its capital at the present time is forty-five thousand dollars,
1 Public worship had been held for about six 'l The pulpit was supplied for several months
months in James's Hall, conducted by various by the Rev. Dr. Thayer. In May, 1878, the Rev.
clergymen under the auspices of the Massachu- F. A. Dillingham, then a student in the Divinity
setts Convention. Professor Charles H. Leonard School connected with Tufts College, accepted
supplied the desk for about two years. The a unanimous invitation to the pastorate, and was
Rev. William H. Dearborn was settled as pas- ordained and installed August 29, 1878, closing
tor in November, 1873, and ministered till No- his labors April i, 1881. All the departments
vember, 1875. For about three and a half years of the parish and church are healthy and har-
the pulpit was supplied mostly by the Rev. H. monious ; and as the neighborhood is growing
K. Russ. The present pastor, the Rev. B F. rapidly in population, and families of various
Eaton, took up the work, in connection with antecedents heartily unite in the movement, the
that of the Brighton parish, May i, 1879. future is hopeful.
THE CENTURY OF UNIVERSALISM. 507
including sixteen thousand dollars of trust funds, the income of which is
devoted to the reducing of the price of its publications for wider circulation.
Among its issues are The Christian Leader, The Myrtle, The Universalist
Quarterly, Sunday- School Helper, and Universalist Register. Besides these
periodicals, it has owned the stereotype plates of one hundred and forty
volumes, many of which are still in constant demand. Among them,
besides those already mentioned in this chapter, are the following valu-
able works : The Crown of Thorns ; Discourses on the Lord's Prayer;
Hours of Communion, — by the Rev. E. H. Chapin, D.D. Ancient History
of Universalism ; Counsel and Encouragement, — by the Rev. Hosea Ballou,
2d, D.D. Modern History of Universalism ; Notes and Illustrations on tlie
Parables of the New Testament ; Life of Rev. Hosea Ballou; Commentary
on the Revelation of St. John, — by the Rev. Thomas Whittemore, D.D.
A Compend of Christian Divinity ; The New Testament of our Lord and
Saviour yesus Clirist, with notes, etc., — by the Rev. Sylvanus Cobb, D.D.
Theology of Universalism; Over the River, or Pleasant Walks into the Val-
ley of Shadows and Beyond; Origin and History of the Doctrine of Endless
PunisJiment, — by the Rev. T. B. Thayer, D.D. Endless Punishment, in the
very words of its advocates, by the Rev. Thomas J. Sawyer, D.D., Packard
Professor of Theology in Tufts Divinity School. The Universalism of the
Lord's Prayer; Memoir of the Rev. Thomas Whittemore, D.D. ; Practical
Hints to Universalists, — by the Rev. John G. Adams, D.D. The Old Forts
Taken, by the Rev. A. A. Miner, D.D. The Latest Word of Universalism,
being thirteen essays by thirteen clergymen ; Memoir of the Rev. Ebenezer
Fisher, D.D., President of the Theological School connected with the St.
Lawrence University, Canton, New York, — by the Rev. George H. Emer-
son, D.D., editor of the Christian Leader. Illustrations of tlie Divine Gov-
ernment, by T. Southwood Smith, M.D. The Philosophy of Universalism ;
Exposition and Defence of Universalism ; Sermons for the Times and People;
The Doctrine of Endless Misery Examined and Refuted; Rudiments of
Theological and Moral Science, — by the Rev. I. D. Williamson, D.D. At
Our Best, by the Rev. Sumner Ellis, D.D. Our New Departure ; Universal-
ism. in Life and Doctrine, — by the Rev. Elbridge Gerry Brooks, D.D. The
Christian Doctrine of Salvation, by the Rev. Ebenezer Fisher, D.D. Ely
and Thomas's Discussion (a series of letters between the Rev. Styles Ely,
D.D., and the Rev. Abel C. Thomas) ; Letters on the Moral and Religious
Duties of Parents, — by the Rev. Otis A. Skinner, D.D. The Balance, or
Moral Arguments for Universalism, by the Rev. A. D. Mayo; and The
Antiquity of Man, by the Rev. J. P. Maclean. To these must be added
Memoirs of the Rev. Henry Bacon and of the Rev. Sylvanus Cobb, D.D.,
with an autobiography of the first forty-one years of the life of the latter;
various hymn-books and liturgies, as well as juvenile publications and
Sunday-school text-books and books for Sunday-school libraries.
The general interests of the Universalist Church have been greatly ad-
vanced also by numerous publications from other sources. Some of the
508 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
more important of these are: Heaven our Home, by the Rev. G. W. Quimby,
D.D., editor of the Gospel Banner, Augusta, Maine. A Cloud of Witnesses ;
Bible Threatening*; Aion-Aionios ; Bible Proofs of Universal Salvation;
The Bible Hell, — by the Rev. J. W. Hanson, D.D., editor of the Star and
Covenant^ Chicago, 111. A Century of Universalism, by the Rev. Abel C.
Thomas ; and the Biblical Review, a new and improved commentary on
the Bible, in a form for reading as well as for reference, by the Rev. VV. E.
Manley, D.D. A glance at this list shows that the practical obligations of
Christianity have been by no means overlooked.
Among the publishers of Universalist literature in Boston who preceded
the establishment of the present publishing-house, besides Mr. Henry
Bowen already named, mention should be made of Mr. Bela Marsh, who
was engaged in the business half a century ago; Mr. B. B. Muzzey, at 29
Cornhill, who died in 1857; the Rev. Thomas Whittemore, D.D., at 37
Cornhill, who died in 1861, and who was succeeded by the Rev. J. M.
Usher; and Mr. Abel Tompkins, at 40 Cornhill, who died about twenty
years since. The general business of the present house is annually increas-
ing under the judicious management of the agent, Mr. Charles Caverly.
Such in outline is the history of Universalism in Boston. The first
church in the country was organized in Gloucester in 17/9; but Boston may
justly claim to have been the more immediate centre of influence down to
the present time. At the end of the first century now reached Boston con-
tains ten parishes ; and what may be called Business Boston, extending
twenty miles from the city in all directions, contains more than forty,
with a number of others just outside that limit. The nearly eight hundred
clergymen in the country, and about one thousand parishes, embracing
forty-three thousand families, thirty-eight thousand church members, and
fifty-eight thousand members of Sunday-schools, with more than eight hun-
dred church edifices and parish property exceeding $6,250,000 net, are dis-
tributed among twenty-three State Conventions, and are all represented in
one General Convention, whose funds exceed $135,000. The Woman Cen-
tenary Association has raised and expended in missionary work, during the
eleven years of its history, more than $100,000. Eleven periodicals are
published in the interests of the Church; and the half-dozen academies,
four colleges, and two divinity schools possess an aggregate endowment of
about $2,000,000.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE NEW JERUSALEM CHURCH IN BOSTON.
BY THE REV. JAMES REED,
Pastor of the First New Jerusalem Church.
" r I "'HE Boston Society of the New Jerusalem," established in 1818, was
J- the first organization formed in New England of believers in the
doctrines taught by Emanuel Swedenborg. The original number of its
members was but twelve, and its growth, for many years after its formation,
was far from rapid. In 1828 the names of sixty-three persons had been
entered on its rolls. In 1838 this number had swelled to one hundred and
eighty-eight; and from that time to the present (1880) the average annual
increase has been a little more than twenty-three. Eleven hundred and fifty-
nine persons have been received into the society during the sixty-two years
of its existence. Many of these have been removed by death, or trans-
ferred to other societies of the New Church ; so that the present number is
not much above six hundred.
From the foregoing statistics it will be seen that this society, judged by
the ordinary standards, has had its full measure of prosperity. It may be
added that all, or nearly all, the other New-Church societies in Massachu-
setts — some twenty in number — have been largely recruited from its
membership.
The present house of worship in Bowdoin Street, near Beacon Street, was
built and occupied in 1845. Prior to this time the meetings of the church
were held in halls hired for the purpose. The only other society within the
city limits is in Roxbury. It was established in 1870, under the charge of
the Rev. Abiel Silver, but lately deceased, assisted by the Rev. D. V.
Bowen, and has a handsome and substantial edifice on the corner of St.
James and Regent streets. There are also societies in Brookline, Newton,
and Waltham.
The first pastor of the Boston Society was the Rev. Thomas Worcester,
D.D., a graduate of Harvard College in 1818, and one of the twelve original
members of the society, which, as has been said, was instituted the same
year. His father was the Rev. Noah Worcester, D.D., a well-known writer
and clergyman, and a man of marked ability and influence. Thomas
Worcester's interest in the writings of Swedenborg began while he was in
5IO THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
college, and he lost no time in communicating to his friends and classmates
a knowledge of the new doctrines. Several of them became members of
the society at the time of its formation or afterward, among whom may be
mentioned John H. Wilkins, Caleb and Sampson Reed, T. B. Hayward, and
Warren Goddard. Many other Harvard graduates, including the brothers
Theophilus and William Parsons, have been connected with the church dur-
ing the course of its existence.
Dr. Worcester was a man of strong and decided character, and took a
leading position among those with whom he was associated, not only in his
own society, but in the church at large. He also served a term of six years
in the Board of Overseers of Harvard College, and received the honorary
degree of D.D. from that institution. He died in August, 1878, at the age
of eighty-three. His pastoral charge of the church in Boston was terminated
in 1867, having embraced a period of almost fifty years. He was succeeded
by the Rev. James Reed, a son of his classmate and life-long friend Samp-
son Reed, and a graduate of Harvard in the year 1855. Mr. Reed is at the
present time the pastor of the society. For the last seven years of Dr.
Worcester's pastorate he served as his assistant.
So far as is known, attention was first called in Boston to Swedenborg
and his writings by one James Glen, in or about the year 1784. He appears
to have visited the city for the purpose of lecturing on this subject. Not
much is known of the results of his efforts ; but it is believed that some
interest was awakened, which became more apparent at a later period.
In 1794, and again in 1796, the Rev. William Hill, of England, came to
this country with the avowed object of disseminating the doctrines of the
New Church. For a considerable time he resided in Massachusetts, in the
vicinity of Boston. He is said to have had great hopes of Harvard Uni-
versity, and is known to have presented some of Swedenborg's works to
the library. The immediate result of his efforts could hardly have met his
expectations, as the number of his converts was very small ; but the books
which he distributed here and there produced effects more tangible and
lasting. Of those deposited in Harvard College library Dr. Worcester tells
an amusing story in a communication made by him to the Boston church
some years ago. He says : —
" Upon my return to the college, after I. had begun to read Swedenborg, I went to
the library the second time to see if I could find any of his works. The librarian
looked into the catalogue again, and found the alcove and shelves where they ought
to have been, but they were not there. Then we began a thorough search. We
looked through the whole library, in place and out of place, but could not find them.
Then we began to think of other rooms. At that time the library was in the second
story of the west end of Harvard Hall. In the east end was a large room called the
' Philosophical Room.' And between this room and the library was a small room,
which for the want of a proper name was called the ' Museum.' It was filled with
rubbish, old curiosities, cast off, superseded, and obsolete philosophical apparatus, and
so forth, all covered with dust. We could see.no reason for hunting here, except that
THE NEW JERUSALEM CHURtTtt IN BOSTON. 511
we had hunted everywhere else, without finding what we wanted. There was a long
table in the room. Upon it and under it were piles of useless articles, and beyond
it were shelves against the wall, where various things were stored away. On the under
shelf, as far out of sight as possible, I saw some books. I told the librarian, and he
went round and worked his way until he got at them, and found that the large books
were volumes of the ' Arcana Coelestia.' There were also several other works of
Swedenborg, all of them covered with dust. I immediately got an order from Presi-
dent Kirkland, giving me authority to take the books and keep them in my room ; and
this I did for the rest of my college life." 1
The incident here narrated illustrates the estimate which was placed on
Swedenborg's writings at that time. Those who embraced the new doctrines
and became members of the church did so at the risk of much personal
sacrifice. Some of Dr. Worcester's college associates were unable, after
their graduation, to obtain positions as teachers on account of their Sweden-
borgian belief; and others found themselves, for the same reason, almost
cut off from their former social connections. Mr. Henry G. Foster, one of
the earliest members of the Boston Society, writes in 1857 concerning the
state of things at or about the year 1818, that " those who made any efforts
to impart the truths they had received were in general soon led to relinquish
the attempt by the incredulity or disdain with which they were repelled ; "
that " they were acknowledged, by the condescending liberality of their
contemporaries, to be good people, though weak to a degree little short
of fatuity; " and he adds: "The change which has taken place during the
last half century is nearly unimaginable to the present generation." 2
While this last observation of Mr. Foster is undoubtedly true, it must
yet be admitted that the growth of the New Church as a visible organiza-
tion has been slow. Although there is probably no religious body which
holds its peculiar tenets with a deeper conviction of their truth and value
than those who are known as Swedenborgians, they cannot claim to have
received at any time large accessions from the community around them.
But they feel nevertheless that the doctrines they profess exert a con-
stant and ever increasing influence on the thought of the age, and con-
tain the vital principles which must finally prevail over the minds of
men, whether their own immediate efforts to propagate them meet with
success or failure.
These reflections lead me to speak more particularly of the claim which
Swedenborg makes, not for himself personally, but for the truth which is
revealed in his writings.
All who are familiar with his biography know that he was, in his own day
and generation, a distinguished philosopher and scientist, and an influential
member of the Swedish Diet. It was not until he was over fifty years of
age that he became a writer on spiritual themes. He then believed that he
had been called by the Lord to make known to men the internal or spiritual
1 Biographical Sketch of Thomas Worcester, D.D., by Sampson Reed, pp. 17, 18.
2 New Jerusalem Magazine, vol. xxx. pp. in, 112.
512 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
sense of the divine Word, with the doctrines contained therein, that sense
having been first made clear to his own mind as he diligently read the
Scriptures. From that time until his death, which took place in 1772, when
he was eighty-four years old, he was continually writing and publishing
books on theological subjects. Yet he did not intermit his attention to his
public duties ; nor does he appear to have lost in any degree his general
influence.
He declares that the time in which he lived and wrote was that of the
close or consummation of the first Christian Church, and was signalized by
no less an event than the second coming of the Lord and the establishment
of a new era or dispensation of Christianity. Not that the Lord came
visibly, in person, to the outward apprehension of men, or that the divine
impulse which gave birth to the new age was manifest in this world. But
the work was primarily and essentially a spiritual one. According to the
philosophy taught by Swedenborg, all natural events are traceable to spirit-
ual causes ; and the two worlds, the spiritual and the natural, are closely con-
nected with each other. Hence any important occurrence taking place in
the former must sooner or later produce its effects here on earth.
Without going further into particulars, or attempting to argue the ques-
tion, it is sufficient to say that Swedenborg claimed to foresee, from a
spiritual point of view, that after the middle of the last century a marked
change would come over humanity. A new impetus would be given to
human thought and life. There would be a new heaven and a new earth, in
that a new state of things would exist both in heaven and on earth. Not
only religion and theology, but all else that deeply affects the lives of men,
would undergo a transformation. There would be a new church, or a new
dispensation of divine truth and influence in the broadest sense. The
change would be gradual, but it would be universal. Not a few who have
never heard of Swedenborg, or have heard only to deride him, bear uncon-
scious testimony to the truth of this prediction. That we are living in a
wonderful new age is every day becoming more and more the common
feeling and belief of mankind. It is declared with ever increasing unanimity
and confidence that the Christianity of the future must and will be radically
different from the Christianity of the past.
Swedenborg himself says, respecting this new age : —
" The state of the world hereafter will be quite similar to what it has been hereto-
fore ; for the great change which has been effected in the spiritual world does not
induce any change in the natural world as regards the outward form ; so that the
affairs of States — peace, treaties, and wars, with all other things which belong to socie-
ties of men in general and in particular — will exist in the future just as they existed
in the past. The Lord's saying, that in the last times there will be wars, and that
nation will then rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and that there will
be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in divers, places (Matt. xxiv. 6, 7), does not
signify that such things will exist in the natural world ; for the Word in its prophecies
does not treat of the kingdoms or of the nations upon earth, or consequently of their
THE NEW JERUSALEM CHURCH IN BOSTON. 513
wars, or of famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in nature, but of such things as cor-
respond to them in the spiritual world. . . . But as for the state of the church, this it
is which will be dissimilar hereafter ; it will be similar indeed in the outward form, but
dissimilar in the inward. To outward appearance divided churches will exist as here-
tofore ; their doctrines will be taught as heretofore, and the same religions as now will
exist among the gentiles. But henceforth the man of the church will be in a freer
state of thinking on matters of faith — that is, on spiritual things which relate to heaven
— because spiritual liberty has been restored to him." 1
It will be evident from all these considerations that New Churchmen, or
Swedenborgians, must needs take a broad view of the church and its
growth. How far the old Christian sects will be dismembered, and the little
body which includes the subject of this chapter be blessed with continuous
life, and become the acknowledged nucleus of the church of the future, is a
matter of comparative indifference to them. The great fact everywhere
confronts them, that the prophecies which they have been led to believe
are receiving manifest fulfilment; that the establishment of a new church or
dispensation is rapidly going on ; that fresh light from heaven is descend-
ing, and new spiritual influences are busily at work ; that liberty of thought
is daily increasing, and that in the exercise of it each man sooner or later
will find the place that belongs to him. As for themselves, experience
shows them that their own sense of spiritual need can be satisfied only in an
organization which gives full expression to the specific doctrines taught in
Svvedenborg's writings. Accordingly they maintain such an organization,
endeavoring to be true to their deepest convictions and to enjoy the same
spiritual freedom which they willingly concede to others.
Their policy with regard to the religious denominations around them has
never been aggressive. Believing, as they do, that human salvation depends
on the use which is made of opportunities more than on the opportunities
themselves, and that therefore the kingdom of heaven lies open to men of
all nations and creeds, they do not feel that kind of solicitude which has
often led the members of some Christian sects to compass sea and land in
search of proselytes as a matter involving the issues of eternal life and
death. Believing also that religious truth cannot really be received by man
unless he is in a state of freedom and rationality, they do not approve of
any urgent and persuasive methods which tend to hinder the exercise of
these two faculties. Their chief reliance, in addition to the maintenance
of public worship, has been on the publication and circulation of books,
mainly the writings of Swedenborg. One gentleman in Philadelphia, Mr.
L. C. lungerich, has during the last seven years given away, through the
publishing house of J. B. Lippincott & Co., many thousand volumes to Pro-
testant clergymen of all denominations ; and other individuals and associated
bodies have devoted much time and money to the same work.
This chapter does not offer a suitable occasion for speaking in detail of
the peculiar doctrines of the New Church. Suffice it to say that they differ
1 Treatise on The Last Judgment, No. 73.
VOL. III. — 65.
5'4
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
from other doctrines not on any single point or any few points which might be
quickly named ; but they bring new light to bear on every subject of human
thought. Under their influence all things in heaven and earth appear trans-
formed. To those who believe them they come with the certitude of rational
conviction. They are seen as philosophical principles, which are no more
to be doubted than so many mathematical demonstrations. Instead of being
at war with science, they look to science for their proof and confirmation ;
yet they are equally in harmony with Scripture. I am aware that these
assertions will seem to many like the unguarded expressions of mere enthu-
siasm. But be this as it may, they will at least serve to define the position
of a religious body which, undisturbed by the fewness of its numbers and
the narrow limits of its nominal influence, yet confidently awaits the issue
of events, beholding in the signs of the time the fulfilment of its expecta-
tions and hopes, as the advanced guards of human progress constantly
draw nearer to its own standard of Christian truth.
VL^J^CL
CHAPTER XIV.
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN BOSTON.
BY THE VERY REV. WILLIAM BYRNE,
Vicar-General of the Diocese.
ONE hundred years ago there were about one hundred Catholics in Bos-
ton. These were for the most part either French, Irish, or Spanish.
They had then no church organization, no church, no regular place of wor-
ship, and only the occasional ministrations of transient priests. Only two
of these are known to have made any considerable stay in Boston. These
were the Abbe de la Poterie, an ex-chaplain of the French navy, who said
the first mass in the School-Street chapel, Nov. 2, 1788, and the Rev. Louis
Rousselet; the latter was here about the close of the War of Indepen-
dence.
These missionaries were succeeded by the Rev. John Thayer, a native of
Boston, a convert to the Catholic faith, who had been a Congregational
minister. During this gen-
^
tleman's travels in Europe W ftMt JL^fcH^U. j£<^t<r //'A*
in 1781-83 he learned and (/ J "/P '
accepted the doctrines of (J
the Roman Catholic Church. After this change he still felt impelled to
continue the work of the Christian ministry, and resolved to become a
priest. With this end in view he entered the seminary of St. Sulpice,
Paris. There he completed his studies, and prepared himself for the re-
ception of sacred orders. After being ordained priest he returned to
America, and visited Dr. Carroll, of Baltimore, the superior of the missions
in the United States. Dr. Carroll assigned him to the Boston mission. On
his arrival in Boston, Jan. 4, 1790, he found the Catholics using as a place
of religious assembly and worship a small chapel on School Street. This
chapel had been previously occupied by a small Huguenot congregation,1
but was the property of Mr. Perkins, from whom Father Thayer obtained,
in 1790, a lease for a few years.2 This may be said to be the first regularly
organized church society of Roman Catholics in Boston.3
1 [See Vol. II. p. 253. — ED.] was sent to the Kentucky Missions in 1799.
- From the arrival of the Rev. John de Che- During his stay in Boston, he was frequently en-
verus in 1796, the Rev. John Thayer devoted his gaged in controversies on religious subjects.
chief attention to the few Catholics who had set- 3 The Rev. Dr. Carroll, of Baltimore, supe-
tled in New England outside of Boston, till he rior of the Catholic Missions in the United
516 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
On Aug. 20, 1792, the Rev. Francis A. Matignon, a French priest, arrived
in Boston, having been sent by Dr. Carroll to assist Father Thayer. Before
the French Revolution drove Dr. Matignon from his native land, he had
been for several years regius professor of divinity in the College of Navarre.
He was a most valuable helper in the work of the Boston mission, as he was
a learned ecclesiastic, a zealous priest, a highly educated and polite scholar,
and a man of a meek, gentle, and genial disposition.
CATHEDRAL OF THE HOLY CROSS, IN FRANKLIN STREET.
The Rev. John de Cheverus, another exiled French priest, soon, how-
ever, joined him on this mission. This he did at Dr. Matignon's invitation
and with the sanction of Dr. Carroll. He was ordained at Paris, Dec. 18,
1790, in the last public ordination which preceded the breaking out of
the great French Revolution. He arrived in Boston Oct. 3, 1796. Two
clergymen better fitted than Matignon and Cheverus for the peculiar needs
States, paid an official visit to the Boston mis-
sion during the year 1791. The only record of
this visit, so far as we can discover, is found in
a letter of Dr. Carroll, dated Aug. 28, 1791, and
addressed to Governor Hancock. After most
heartily thanking the Governor and his estimable
lady for the many favors and civilities they ex-
tended to him during his stay in Boston, Dr.
Carroll concludes his letter as follows : —
" I know that your Excellency frequently sees Mr. and
Mrs. Jaffray, Mr- Sheriff and his sister, the Rev Mr.
Thatcher, and Judge Sullivan. Will it be too much pre-
sumption to ask that I may be mentioned to them as full of
gratitude for their civilities and politeness, and anxious to
give any proof of it that they can command ? Desiring once
more my very humble respects to your most obliging and
polite Lady, I have the honor to be with the utmost esteem,
" Sir. your most obedient and humble servant,
"t J. CARROLL."
The original of this letter is in the possession
of the Rev. E. H. Welch, S. J. of Boston Col-
lege, and was presented to him about eighteen
years ago by Mr. Charles Hancock.
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN BOSTON.
517
of the Boston missions could hardly be found. Their virtue, piety, and zeal
won the hearts of the Catholics, and, together with their refined manners
and genial disposition, soon gained the respect and esteem of the citizens
in general.
In a few years after this, the Catholic congregation having somewhat
increased in numbers, it was thought well to build a church for their ac-
commodation.1 A committee to solicit contributions for this object was
appointed at a meeting held March 31, 1799. The members of the com-
mittee were Hon. Don Juan Stoughton, Spanish consul at this port, John
Magner, Michael Burns, John Duggan, Patrick Campbell, Owen Callaghan,
and Edmund Connor. The committee in a few weeks secured subscriptions
amounting to $3,000. Many pledged themselves to give half their monthly
earnings till the church was completed and paid for. A lot of land at the
foot of Franklin Street was immediately purchased. A second subscription"
to create a building fund was then opened. At the head of this subscrip-
tion list we find the name of John Adams, President of the United States ;
Dr. Matignon received some contributions from friends in the Southern
States. The total sum collected was $16,153, of which $3,433 was con-
tributed by Protestants friendly to the enterprise. Ground was broken for
the foundations, March 17, 1800. The church, sixty by eighty feet, was
built in accordance with plans furnished by Mr. Charles Bulfinch, architect.2
It was a brick structure on a stone foundation, the basement walls being
also of stone ; and it cost about $20,000. On Sept. 29, 1 803, it was dedicated
to divine worship, under the title of the Holy Cross, by Bishop Carroll, of
Baltimore, to whom, jointly with Dr.
Matignon, the land was deeded in
trust for the Catholics of Boston. He
was assisted in the ceremony by
Dr. Matignon and the Rev. John de
Cheverus and two other priests. A procession starting from the house of
the Spanish consul proceeded to the church. After blessing the church
in the mode prescribed in the Roman Catholic ritual, the bishop celebrated
a solemn high mass; Mr. Mallet presided at the organ. The church was
densely crowded, and the assembly out of doors was very large and orderly.
Dr. Cheverus preached the dedicatory sermon. A bell brought here from
Spain, now in the mortuary chapel of Holyhood Cemetery, was presented
to the church by Mr. Hasket Derby.
This church was afterward known as the Franklin-Street Cathedral of
the Holy Cross. It was subsequently enlarged, and was for many years the
only Catholic church in Boston. Divine service continued to be conducted
in it till September, 1860, when it was sold to Isaac Rich, business in the
1 The Catholics about this time numbered and disinterestedness, is still retained in the
twelve or fifteen hundred. family of his daughter in New York. A portrait
'2 [A beautiful silver urn, given to Mr. Bui- of Mr. Bulfinch, and an estimate of his work as
finch by the Catholics in testimony of his skill an architect find place in a later chapter. — ED.]
518 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
mean time having so completely transformed the neighborhood that few
dwelling-houses remained, and traffic in the vicinity having become so noisy
that the usefulness of the church was greatly impaired. It is now replaced
by the magnificent Cathedral of the Holy Cross at the South End.
In the year 1808 Boston was made an episcopal see by Pope Pius VII.
Owing to the troubled state of Europe at that time the official papers ap-
pointing Dr. Cheverus first Bishop of Boston did not arrive till 1810. The
new diocese, of which Boston was thus made the centre, embraced all the
New-England States. Bishop Cheverus was consecrated in Baltimore, Nov.
I, 1810, by Bishop Carroll.
1 [This cut follows a likeness painted by ough, of Boston. It was painted for Mrs. John
Gilbert Stuart just before the Bishop left Bos- Gore. See Mason's Gilbert Stuart, p. 158 —
ton, and is now owned by Mrs. Horatio Green- En.)
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN BOSTON. 519
On Sept. 19, 1818, Dr. Matignon died in Boston. His remains were
deposited in the tomb of John Magner in the Old Granary Burying-ground
n.2.^ O&JTWI
on Tremont Street, where they remained till transferred, shortly afterward,
to the new Catholic cemetery in South Boston. They now lie under the floor
of the mortuary chapel of St. Augustine in that cemetery.
The Ursuline Convent was established in a building beside the cathedral,
June 1 6, 1820, and a school for girls was opened and taught by the nuns.
The project of a nunnery and school was first broached by the Rev. John
Thayer. Such interest did he take in the matter that he collected about
$8,000 for this purpose; and when he died, in 1822, in Limerick, Ireland,
he was engaged in soliciting funds for this object. The Ursulines were
afterward, in 1826, transferred by Bishop Fenwick to a convent built for
them in Charlestown, on a hill since known as Mount Benedict, now in the
city of Somerville.
To the great regret of all classes of citizens, Bishop Cheverus, failing in
health, was recalled to his native country, and left for France Oct. I, 1823.
There he was made Bishop of Montauban, and was afterward transferred to
Bordeaux, where he died cardinal archbishop, July 19, 1836. Very Rev.
William Taylor, vicar-general, administered the affairs of the diocese till the
appointment of the second bishop of Boston, Benedict J. Fenwick,1 a native
of Maryland, and a member of the Society of Jesus, who was consecrated
in Baltimore by Bishop Marechal, Nov. I, 1825. When he came to Boston,
accompanied by Bishop England, he found only two priests in the city, —
the Rev. William Taylor, V. G., and the
Rev. Patrick Byrne.
The Rev. James Fitton and the Rev.
William Wiley were ordained priests in c---~ ^ ~cr~y*S
December, 1827. The first Catholic
school for boys was opened in connection with the cathedral in 1827, and
was taught by the ecclesiastical students who were pursuing their studies
under the direction of Bishop Fenwick. It was in this school that the
present Archbishop of Boston received his first lessons in the rudiments of
Latin. Rev. James Fitton, still living, was one of his teachers.
Bishop Fenwick, finding that there were little colonies of Catholics set-
tled in Charlestown and at Cragie's Point, resolved to build a church for
them. Aug. 15, 1828, he visited and approved a site for a new church
midway between these points. At his suggestion a meeting of the Catholics
of these districts was held August 25 of that year, at which a plan of build-
ing and paying for a church with one hundred and twenty pews was adopted.
1 Bishop Fenwick was born, Sept. 3, 1782, in to settle in Maryland, under Lord Baltimore's
St. Mary's County, Maryland. He belonged to Charter. He was also among the first to join
one of the first families that came from England the Society of Jesus on its revival.
520 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
By selling half the pews it was found that about $6,000 could be secured.
A lot of land was purchased from Amos Binney for $1,569, and the church
begun Oct. 3, 1828, when the corner-stone was laid by Bishop Fenwick,
assisted by the BRev. P. Byrne, Father Wiley, and the Rev. William Tyler, of
Boston, the Rev. John Mahony, of Salem, and the Rev. R. D. Woodley, of
Providence. A procession led by the cross-bearer proceeded from the house
of Mr. Robertson, a Protestant gentleman, to the site of the church on
Richmond Street. Bishop Fenwick blessed the foundation and laid the
corner-stone with the usual ceremonies. He also preached the sermon.
An immense assembly of people was present, many of whom were drawn
there by curiosity to witness this novel spectacle. On May 10, 1829, the
church being finished, it was dedicated under the title of St. Mary's. Bishop
Fenwick performed the ceremony, assisted
.^ " ^ ky the Rev. James Fitton and the Rev.
y /J &~*2 1 cd- /^ ft*^ William Wiley, and also preached. The
mass was celebrated by the Rev. William
Tyler, who was afterward first bishop of Hartford, assisted by Fathers
Fitton and Wiley, — this being his first solemn high mass. The concourse
of Catholics and others was very great. Father Fitton preached a sermon
at vespers.1
The small mortuary chapel standing since 1819 in St Augustine's Ceme-
tery in South Boston was enlarged so as to be used as a church in 1831 for
the accommodation of the few Catholic settlers of that peninsula. The Rev.
Mr. O'Flaherty said the first mass in the enlarged chapel, and preached a
sermon on the occasion. Afterward this church was attended by the Rev.
Thomas Lynch and the Rev. John Mahony.
This year the United States Intelligencer was published in Boston as the
successor of a newspaper called the Jesuit, which was begun in 1829. The
articles in these papers were chiefly controversial, and their tone polemic
rather than apologetic. They were dictated by sincere conviction and zeal
rather than by policy or expediency ; and while they may have made some
converts and enlightened not a few, they must have been distasteful, not to
say irritating, to many.
The Sisters of Charity were first introduced into Boston in 1832. They
came from St. Joseph's, Emmettsburg, Maryland. Sister Ann Alexis was
their first superior in this city, and their duties were to take care of orphans
and poor children. The labors of Sister Ann Alexis, extending over a period
of nearly fifty years, were productive of great good, and were highly appre-
ciated by citizens of every religious belief. The female orphan asylum on
Camden Street is a fitting monument of her charity, zeal, and industry.2
1 In 1830, just fifty years ago, the entire - They first opened a school for girls on
Catholic population of Boston and Charlestown Hamilton Street. They opened an orphan asy-
was about ten thousand souls, attended by the lum on the corner of High and Pearl streets in
bishop and four priests, — namely, O'Flaherty, 1841. The Camden-Street asylum was founded
Wiley, Tyler, and Byrne. The baptisms in that in 1858. Sister Blandina, one of the sisters who
year numbered five hundred and twenty-six. came with Sister Ann Alexis, was living in 1872.
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN BOSTON. 521
About this time the cathedral began to be so crowded at all the services
that the bishop found it necessary to begin to provide means of building a
new church, and funds for this purpose were collected to the amount of five
thousand dollars.
Some time previous to this, the Catholics had purchased a lot of land on
Bunker Hill, Charlestown, and had begun to use it as a burial-place for
their dead. This year an attempt was made to induce the town authorities
to prevent further interments therein. It was thought that this historic
ground should not be used as a place of sepulture. The Legislature was
petitioned for a law that would give cities and towns authority to grant
or withhold permission to bury within their borders. The Catholics op-
posed the passage of this law, on the ground that, in the growing anti-
Catholic spirit of the time, they feared it would be used to embarrass them
in giving Catholic sepulture to their dead.
About this time the flight of Miss Rebecca Reed from the Ursuline Con-
vent in Charlestown caused some popular excitement. The fact that she
was a convert from Protestantism, coupled with her sudden and secret flight
and the reasons she assigned for this step, were taken advantage of by cer-
tain zealots to fan the growing flame of anti-Catholic prejudice and public
distrust. On July 28 the following year (1834), another somewhat similar,
but far more serious and unfortunate, event occurred in connection with
this same convent, which finally led to the most disastrous and deplorable
results, including the destruction of the convent by a mob.1
It appears that one of the nuns named Sister Mary John, in a fit of men-
tal derangement, caused as the physician afterward said by hysteria, left
the convent secretly on the night of July 28, and, going to the house of a
Protestant neighbor named Runey, was at her own request conducted by
him to the house of Mr. Cotting, in West Cambridge. This Mr. Getting
had formerly had two daughters in the convent school as pupils, and Sister
Mary John had thus some acquaintance with the family. Mr. Cotting re-
ceived her kindly. Bishop Fenwick, learning the facts of the case from the
nuns, repaired that evening to Mr. Cotting's house and requested to see and
converse with Sister Mary John. This request she persistently refused to
comply with. The bishop was very anxious that she should return and
place herself under the protection and care of her sisters in religion, or con-
sent to be restored to her relatives, both for her own sake and on account
of the misconceptions that a contrary course would arouse in the public
mind, — already hostile to Catholic institutions, and peculiarly prejudiced
1 The facts in this case are taken directly the collection of Bishop England's works, vol. v.
from Bishop Femvick's journal, and do not differ p. 223. The chairman of the committee was
materially from those found by the investigation Charles G. Loring, and it was composed of such
of a committee appointed for this purpose at a distinguished men as Charles P. Curtis, Henry
public meeting held in Faneuil Hall, Aug. 12, Lee, Horace Mann, Richard S. Fay, John D.
1834. This investigation lasted for two weeks, Williams, William Sturgis, Benjamin Rich,
and the results of it are clearly stated in the Robert C. Winthrop, Nathan Appleton, The-
admirable report of the committee, which is a ophilus Parsons, Thomas Motley, and Edward
matter of public record, and may be found in Sohier.
VOL. III. — 66.
522
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
against monasteries and nunneries. In this emergency the bishop had re-
course to the intervention of her brother, Mr. Harrison, of Boston. The
brother visited West Cambridge, and was received by his sister. After
some persuasion she consented to return to the convent, after having seen
the bishop and hearing what he had to say. This she did July 29, accom-
panied by her brother and the bishop. The next day the attack of hysteria
passed away, and Sister Mary John was restored to her normal condition.
With the return of mental tranquillity came back her love for the religious
state, and her desire to remain in the convent. She could hardly believe the
facts in the case as related to her, and was inclined to look upon what had
MOUNT BENEDICT.1
happened as a dream. When she could no longer withhold her credence
she was greatly grieved, and was heard to cry out from time to time, " O
God ! where were my senses? " " How can I ever repair the injury I have
done ! " The bishop and the nuns did all in their power to soothe her
anguish and restore her peace of mind. The physician, Dr. Thompson,
directed them to keep her as composed and quiet as possible, to guard
against a possible relapse. Happily this did not take place, and all would
have been well had not a rumor spread that she was detained in the convent
against her will, and even harshly treated by the other nuns. The public
press took up and spread this rumor far and wide, and the public mind was
1 [This cut follows a lithograph now in the view of the ruins in Drake's Landmarks of Mid-
dining-room of the residence of the pastor of St. dlesex, p. 91. — ED.]
Mary's church, Charlestown. There is another
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN BOSTON. 523
excited to a high pitch of indignation. Finally, some of the more ignorant
and prejudiced class, including others prompted by bigotry and malice,
made a demonstration against the convent on the night of August 9. About
nine o'clock that night a mob of rough characters, chiefly of the laboring
class, gathered about the convent grounds, crying out in loud and menacing
tones, " Down with the convent ! " " Away with the nuns ! " Two men
named Cutter, who resided in the neighborhood, constituted themselves
spokesmen for the assembly, and undertook to see if there was any truth in
the charge that a nun was forcibly detained in the cloister. With this end
in view, they called at the convent, and requested to see the superior and
Sister Mary John, so that they might hear from their own lips the truth of
the matter. The superior complied with their request, and Sister Mary John
declared to them that her stay in the convent was the result of her own free
choice. The Cutters retired, professing to be satisfied, and so informed the
mob, who soon afterwards withdrew. The nuns, however, in their great
tribulation, anxiety, and fear, spent the night in watching and prayer.
The next day being Sunday, the bishop visited the convent and said mass
there, as was his custom. He found Mary John full of regret for what had
happened, and most anxious to be assured of his forgiveness. On the fol-
lowing Monday, about three o'clock in the afternoonl the selectmen of
Charlestown paid an official visit to the convent, and with the permission of
the superior examined it from garret to cellar. They remained for about
three hours, and, having seen and conversed with Sister Mary John and the
other inmates, declared that they were perfectly satisfied that everything was
correct, and that they would so announce through the newspapers of the fol-
lowing day. Notwithstanding all this, about eight o'clock on the night of
this same day (Aug. 11, 1834), a mob again began to assemble about the
convent. No great apprehension of violence was, however, felt, as it was
known that the civil authorities were warned in time ; and it was thought
that they were able and willing to protect property and keep the peace.
The event proved that this supposition was not at all correct. About ten
o'clock that night, when thousands had been gathered to the scene by a
bonfire lighted on the adjoining land, a body of about five or six hundred
ruffians made a furious assault on the convent. They broke in the windows,
battered down the doors, invaded the premises, ransacked and pillaged the
convent, and having broken and thrown out of doors such furniture as they
could not carry away, finally set fire to the house itself, and burned it to the
ground. Although an alarm of fire was sounded, and some fire companies
with their engines appeared on the scene, no effectual efforts were made to
extinguish the flames, — the firemen being probably overawed by the mob.
Two of the selectmen of Charlestown were on the ground, but, beyond ad-
vising the mob to abstain from violence, did nothing to protect the convent.
The pupils, about fifty-five in number, all young ladies, had retired to bed
before the assault began. They were now hastily dressed, and hurried out of
the building, followed by the nuns. All fled in scattered groups, as best they
524 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
could, and found refuge in the neighboring farm-houses until the following
morning, when they were gathered together and returned to their friends.
They saved nothing except what they wore at the time, not even a change
>of clothing. The Ursuline nuns were brought to Boston, and were tem-
porarily lodged with the Sisters of Charity.
The citizens of Boston of the better class were filled with indignation at
this dastardly outrage on defenceless women and children. The very next
day a meeting was held in Faneuil Hall, in which Mr. Harrison Gray Otis
delivered a speech of great power and eloquence. He denounced the per-
petrators of this savage outrage as cowardly ruffians, and expressed his
horror and indignation at the shameful and atrocious proceedings of the
mob. Speeches of the same character were also made by Josiah Quincy,
Jr., and others. Resolutions were formally passed, condemning the burning
of the convent in the strongest terms. That same day, however, another
mob collected about the cathedral, but the citizens were armed and pre-
pared, and although many threats were made, no violence was attempted.
The success of Bishop Fenwick in restraining the Catholics from acts of
retaliation and the influence of all good citizens caused the excitement
gradually to subside, and by August 19 tranquillity was perfectly restored.
Thirteen of the rioters were arrested and brought to trial, chiefly through
the exertions of the Faneuil-Hall committee. The Government, however,
failed to convict, except in the case of Marvin Marcy, Jr., a young man who
was probably the least guilty of the number. He was soon afterward par-
doned on the petition of the bishop and others, it being thought incongruous
that while J. R. Buzzell and other leaders in the riot remained unpunished,
the least guilty should suffer.1
The church on Pond (now Endicott) Street, was begun about this time,
and the walls were ready for the roof, Oct. 14, 1835. The basement being
completed, the first mass was said therein on Christmas Day of this year.
The church was afterward dedicated, under the title of St. Mary's, May 22,
1836. For a time the clergymen at the cathedral attended this church, of
which the first regular pastors were Fathers Wiley and O'Beirne.
1 Efforts were subsequently made to induce of chief importance are The Trials, 1834 ; Doc-
the State to make compensation for the damage iiments relating to, 1842 ; the several legislative
done; but although a law was finally (March 16, reports on indemnity, 1852, 1853, 1854; some
1839) passed covering cases of mob violence, the papers in the Boston Commercial Bulletin, Jan.
Legislature did not think it well to make it re- and Feb. 1870, which enlarged, and reproducing
troactive. The convent property has now passed much contemporary evidence, were reissued by
into other hands, and the hill itself on which it Patrick Donahoe as The Charlestown Consent,
stood is fast disappearing, the clay and gravel 1870; Mrs. Louisa Whitney's Burning of the Con-
being used for filling up the low lands along the vent, 1877, the writer having been a pupil there
Mystic River. at the time. Rebecca T. Reed's Six Afont/is in
The Ursulines, after residing for a time on a a Convent was published in Boston in 1835 ; fol-
place in Roxbury, known as the Dearborn Estate, lowed by An Answer from the Lady Superior;
visited Quebec in 1835, and finally withdrew al- this again by a Reply, intended as a vindication
together from Boston. [The bibliography of the of Miss Reed, to whose narrative a separate
convent riot can be traced in J. F. Hunnewell's Supplement was also printed, with an account of
Bibliography of Charlestown, 1880. Those titles the " elopement of Miss Harrison." —
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN BOSTON. 525
The Catholics becoming quite numerous in the south end of the city,
a church on Northampton Street, known as St. Patrick's, was begun in 1835.
The Rev. Thomas Lynch, who was the first pastor of this church, was or-
dained priest July 27, 1833. The Rev. P. O'Beirne, the present venerable
pastor of St. Joseph's, Roxbury, was ordained in 1835.
In 1836 a German Catholic Congregation was organized, and was given
the use of the cathedral for their services, with priests of their own language
to officiate for them. A charity fair in aid of the Orphan Asylum was held
this year, and $2,000 realized.
The conversion of the Rev. George F. Haskins, an Episcopal minister,
happened in 1840, and he was, after due preparation, ordained priest, and be-
came the second pastor of the church of St. John the Baptist, Moon Street.
Afterward he was the first pastor of St. Stephen's church on Hanover Street.
He also founded and conducted the House of the Angel Guardian, an asylum
for wayward and orphan boys.
Dr. O'Flaherty, somewhat noted for the distinguished share he took in
a religious controversy with Dr. Lyman Beecher in 1831, was about this
time appointed pastor of St. Mary's Church, jointly with Rev. Patrick
O'Beirne, now the rector of St. Joseph's Church, Roxbury.
In 1841 a lot of land was purchased on Suffolk Street to serve as a site
for a church for the Catholic Germans, the corner-stone of which was laid
June 28 of the following year.1 A procession, formed at St. Patrick's church,
proceeded to the site of the new church, the people on foot, the bishop and
clergy vested in their official robes in carriages. The Rev. Francis Roloff,
the pastor, preached the sermon. In 1842 was held the first synod of the
Boston diocese, in which statutes for the better ordering of discipline were
enacted. Jan. 17, 1843, a lot of land on Moon Street, on which there was a
large warehouse, was bought for church purposes, and after being adapted
to its new uses was dedicated under the title of St. John the Baptist. It is
now used as a parochial school, and its place is supplied by St. Stephen's
church, Hanover Street. The first pastor was the Rev. J. B. McMahon.
The chapel of St. Augustine, although somewhat enlarged, soon proved
quite insufficient for the increasing body of Catholics in South Boston. Con-
sequently a new church was begun on Broadway in 1843. The basement
hall was ready for occupancy in 1844, and the church, a fine stone structure,
was dedicated in 1845, and called SS. Peter and Paul. Its first pastor
was the Rev. Terence Fitzsimmons. It was destroyed by fire, Sept. 8,
1848, the flames being first discovered in the belfry. It was supposed to
have caught fire from sparks from a conflagration then raging on Federal
Street, near the bridge. The work of rebuilding it was soon begun, and
having been reconstructed after the original designs, it was rededicated
Nov. 7, 1853. The Rev. P. F. Lyndon was the second pastor, and the
present Rector is the Rev. William A. Blinkinsop.
In the mean time several Catholic families had settled on the island, now
1 The newly-erected tower fell in 1843, doing considerable damage.
526 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
called East Boston. Among those the best known were Mr. Daniel Crowley
and Messrs. McManus and Cummiskey. So inconvenient was it for them
to cross the ferry in order to attend church, that, as soon as their numbers
gave any promise of sufficient support, it was resolved to provide them with
a church of their own. In 1844 Mr. Daniel Crowley, after consultation with
other leading Catholics, and with the approval of the bishop, purchased the
meeting-house of the Maverick Congregational Society ; and after the neces-
sary alterations and repairs were made it was dedicated, as a Catholic church,
on the 25th of February, under the title of St. Nicholas. The Rev. Nicholas
J. O'Brien was the first pastor; and on his return to the cathedral, March,
1847, he was succeeded by the Rev. Charles McCallion, who enlarged the
church and built a fine brick residence for the pastor. He was succeeded
in 1851 by the Rev. William Wiley, who held the office till his death, April
19, 1855. In 1854 the Rev. William Wiley, finding that the congregation
was rapidly increasing, secured a lot of land adjoining the old church, laid
the foundations and completed the basement walls of the large and beauti-
ful stone church now known as the church of the Holy Redeemer. Father
Wiley was succeeded by the Rev. James Fitton, who continued the work and
brought it to completion in 1857, when it was dedicated by Bishop Fitz-
patrick. The belfry contains a fine bell, the gift of Mr. Daniel Crowley.
The galleries have recently been removed, and the interior greatly improved.
The old church was converted into a school-house in 1858, and the Sisters of
Notre Dame have conducted the parochial school for girls therein from that
date to the present time.
The Rev. J. B. Fitzpatrick was appointed Coadjutor Bishop of Boston in
1843, and consecrated March 24, 1844.
The conversion of A. O. Brownson, a
Unitarian clergyman, which took place in
Boston in 1844, attracted public attention.1 He was received into the
Catholic Church by Bishop Fitzpatrick. This year is also marked by
the elevation to the priesthood of the Rev. John J. Williams, the present
Archbishop of Boston.
In 1845 a house on Purchase Street was bought, for $18,000, for the
Orphan Asylum in charge of the Sisters of Charity.
Bishop Fenwick began to fail in health in i846.2 He became quite ill
on the 7th of August, and died on the I ith day of the same month, aged sixty-
three years and eleven months. His funeral took place on the I3th of Au-
gust from the cathedral; Bishop Fitzpatrick officiated, and the Rev. N. J.
O'Brien preached the sermon. As it was his wish to be buried at the College
of the Holy Cross,3 of which he was the founder, his remains were taken
Review, for many years con- trait painter of Boston. It is said to be an ex-
ducted with singular ability and success by Dr. cellent likeness.
Brownson, was also projected in this year. 3 The College of the Holy Cross, near
2 A portrait of Bishop Fenwick, now in the Worcester, was founded in 1843, by Bishop
reception room of the Archbishop's house, was Fenwick, on a farm previously purchased by
painted in 1845 by Mr. Pope, a celebrated por- the Rev. James Fitton. The college was placed
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN BOSTON. 527
through the streets of Boston to the Worcester Railroad station in a solemn
ecclesiastical procession, the bishop and clergy vested in their robes of
office. It is worthy of note that it was a French priest, the Rev. Charles E.
Brasseur de Bourbourg, who carried the cross at the head of the clergy.
This procession, it appears, was not contemplated in the original plan of
the funeral, but was organized under the influence of the moment, at the
suggestion of Bishop Fitzpatrick.
The dedication of the church of the Holy Trinity (German) took place
Oct. 25, 1846. The Rev. Alex. Martini, O. S. F., preached the sermon. On
the 6th of December of the same year was dedicated St. Joseph's church,
Roxbury, of which the Rev. P. O'Beirne was the first pastor, and who still
retains the same charge, after almost fifty years of active work in the
ministry. He will celebrate the golden jubilee of his priesthood in 1885.
In 1847 a newspaper, called the Boston Catholic Observer, the principal
writers for which were the Rev. George F. Haskins and the Rev. N. J.
O'Brien, began to be published. This was the year of the famine in Ireland,
and at the suggestion of the bishop a collection, amounting to $25,000,
was made by the Catholics of the diocese of Boston for the relief of their
suffering brethren. A similar collection was made in 1880.
Some symptoms of the Know-Nothing spirit, which then prevailed
throughout the country, showed themselves in Boston in 1847. The most
notable of these was the preconcerted assembly, June 16, of the lodges of
Boston and vicinity at Fort Hill, a quarter thickly settled by emigrants from
Ireland. The object of this was undoubtedly to provoke a breach of the
peace on the part of the Irish ; but the latter, warned and exhorted by the
bishop and his priests to keep indoors on that day, allowed the Know-Noth-
ings to have their triumph in peace. The forbearance of the Irish in the
presence of these insulting proceedings was greatly admired by the more
peaceable citizens.
The hospital on Deer Island and the poor-house in South Boston were
now rapidly filling up with newly-arrived emigrants, stricken with the ship-
fever. It is thought that it was owing to the Know-Nothing spirit then pre-
vailing that the priests were at first prevented from visiting the Catholics who
were dying in these hospitals. The right to administer religious consolation
to these poor emigrants was afterward conceded at the earnest solicitation
of Bishop Fitzpatrick. This concession was, however, hampered by condi-
tions that seem to us now wholly unnecessary. The Battle of Bunker Hill
was celebrated on the I7th of June this year by a display of no-popery
in charge of professors of the Society of Jesus, the College of the Holy Cross. Bishop Fitz-
ancl members of that order still continue to con- patrick appeared in its behalf before the com-
duct it. The object of this college was to pro- mittee on education, and Charles \V. Upham
vide education in the higher branches, and also in of Salem and other distinguished legislators ad-
the classics, under Catholic auspices, and to cul- vocated the granting of the petition. An act
tivate vocations to the priesthood. granting a charter to the college was passed,
In 1849, an attempt was made to procure a and became a law; but it was repealed the fol-
charter from the Massachusetts legislature for lowing year. A charter was finally granted.
528 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
banners in City Square, Charlestown. About this time occurred the con-
version of Captain Chandler and the ordination of the Rev. Joseph Coolidge
Shaw, a convert to the Catholic Church.
On the 1 9th of September of this year the Rev. P. F. Lyndon became
pastor of St. Mary's church, Charlestown, in place of the Rev. George F.
Goodwin, deceased. During his pastorate he enlarged the church to its
present size, giving it a seating capacity of about one thousand ; and he also
built a new pastoral residence. St. Mary's, Boston, was placed in charge of
the fathers of the Society of Jesus, Oct. 24, 1847, an^ the same society still
continues to furnish pastors for this church, of whom the Rev. John McEl-
roy, S. J., was the first. In 1848 died Dr. Green, a convert to the Roman
Catholic religion, originally from Maine, and still gratefully remembered in
Boston as one of the chief founders of St. Vincent's Orphan Asylum for
girls.
The influx of emigrants from Ireland was now rapidly increasing the
Catholic population of certain districts of the city. Among the places where
these emigrants found tenements in large numbers was the Fort-Hill dis-
trict; and it soon became necessary to furnish church accommodations in
that vicinity. About this time it happened that a stone church on Purchase
Street was offered for sale for $30,000. Mr. Andrew Carney was instructed
by the bishop to buy it, which he did May I, 1848, binding the contract by
a bond for $10,000. When the sellers found that the building was to be
used as a Catholic church, such was the pressure of public opinion upon
them that they sought to recede from their agreement. Knowing they
were held by the bond, they offered to pay $3,000 to have the contract
rescinded. This offer was rejected, and the church passed into the posses-
sion of the Catholics. It continued to be of great utility to them till it
too, like the old cathedral on Franklin Street, had to disappear before the
onward march of business. It was attended for a time from the cathedral.
The Rev. M. T. Gallagher was its first regular pastor. The Rev. E. J. Sher-
idan, at present of Taunton, was also for several years pastor of this church,
which was known as St. Vincent's ; and when it was taken down in April,
1872, the stone was used in building a church of the same name in South
Boston. The present pastor is Rev. W. J. Corcoran.
In 1850 an ordinance passed the city council prohibiting further inter-
ments in the Catholic Cemetery in South Boston. This was a great griev-
ance to Catholics at the time, as they had then few places of burial, and the
laws of their church forbade them to bury their dead in Protestant cemeteries.
A test case was brought into court, and it was found that the city had ex-
ceeded its authority in issuing this prohibition. Again the Legislature was
appealed to for a general law giving cities and towns authority to control
burials within their limits. Bishop Fitzpatrick, sharing in the fears of Cath-
olics that in the then existing state of the public mind such a law would be
used to force them to bury in Protestant cemeteries, appeared in person
before the committee in charge of the bill, opposed its passage, and finally,
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN BOSTON. 529
with the aid of friendly members and other moderate men, succeeded in
postponing legislation on the subject to more favorable times.
July 24, 1849, Father Mathew, the great apostle of temperance, arrived
in Boston from Ireland. He was accorded a public reception by the city
authorities, and granted the use of Boston Common and Faneuil Hall in
which to hold public meetings and administer the total-abstinence pledge.
On the 27th of July he spent the entire day in Faneuil Hall, giving the
pledge to men of all religious denominations. About four thousand took
the pledge that day. The Bishop of Boston extended the hospitalities of
his house to Father Mathew, and placed the cathedral at his disposal for
the advancement of the cause of temperance. During the whole of July
30 he was detained in the cathedral, giving the pledge to the multitudes
that flocked to him.
The Sisters of Notre Dame, from Cincinnati, arrived in Boston Nov. 10,
1849, and took charge of St. Mary's school for girls ; the Sisters of Charity,
previously in charge, having been withdrawn to Emmettsburg, Maryland.
Sister Louis Gonzaga, was the first superior of this community in Boston,
and she is described as a woman of remarkable religious zeal, combined
with great business and executive ability.1
The Rev. Thomas Shahan, present pastor of St. James's church, was
ordained priest in 1849. During the year 1850 Dr. Brownson delivered a
lecture on "Our Times" in the city of Boston; and Archbishop Hughes, of
New York, preached a sermon in the Holy Cross cathedral. About the
beginning of this year some stir was made in the German Catholic con-
gregation by the refusal of the pastor, Father Eck, S. J., to officiate at the
marriage of one of his flock who had joined the secret society of Odd Fel-
lows; the bishop,- being appealed to, sustained the pastor in his refusal.
The Rev. Edward H. Welch, S. J., a member of a well-known Boston
family, and who some years previously had become a convert to the Church
of Rome, arrived home from abroad in 1850. He had the honor of being
made the bearer of palliums for three archbishops, — Purcell of Cincinnati,
Blanc of New Orleans, and Smith of Trinidad ; he is now a distinguished
preacher of the Society of Jesus, and is at present stationed at the church
of the Immaculate Conception, Boston. In 1851 the cathedral was re-
paired, at an expense of $3,000, one half of which was obtained by assess-
ing the pew-owners, and one-half by voluntary contributions. This year
Bishop Fitzpatrick received, October 7, a novel invitation. It came through
a duly accredited agent of the newly elected Emperor of Hayti, and was to
the effect that the bishop would kindly proceed to that island and conse-
crate him, and also administer confirmation throughout the island. The
bishop refused, on the ground that Hayti was not within the ecclesiastical
jurisdiction of the diocese of Boston.
1 This sisterhood first occupied a house on of these sisters is now at the academy on Berke-
Stillman Street, where they resided from Nov. ley Street, which was founded July 3, 1864.
13, 1849,10 May I, 1852, when they moved to the The first superior of this academy was Sister
convent on Lancaster Street. The central house Alphonse Marie.
VOL. III. — 67.
530 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
The institution known as the House of the Angel Guardian was estab-
lished this year by the Rev. George F. Raskins, who conducted it most
successfully until his death. The first collection in the cathedral for this
object amounted to $1,500. It was at first located on land adjoining the
church on Moon Street, near North Square.
Jan. 4, 1852, the Rev. John J. Williams took charge of the small Catholic
chapel on Beach Street, which had been opened in 1850 to meet the religious
wants of the rapidly-growing Catholic population that settled about the
South Cove, and was attended at first by Dr. Ambrose Manahan. Patrick
Mooney, for twenty-five years sexton of the cathedral, died April 14, 1852.
The Otis School-house, on Lancaster Street, was purchased from the
City, May 31, 1852, for $16,500. It was intended to be used fora boys'
school, under the direction of the Jesuits ; and it was hoped that from it
would in time be developed a Catholic academy, in which the classics and
higher English branches could be studied. It is now used as a parochial
school for girls, taught by the Sisters of Notre Dame.
April 5, this year, the first movement was made toward building a church
in the South-Cove district. This was done at a meeting of Catholics held
in the chapel of the Holy Family, on Beach Street. The meeting was pre-
sided over by Bishop Fitzpatrick, and arrangements were made for the col-
lection of funds to purchase a suitable site for a new church. Such a site
was soon found at the corner of Albany and Harvard streets, and was bought
Feb. 18, 1853. The corner-stone was laid July, 1853, and the basement
chapel was used for the first time, Christmas day, 1854. The church was
completed and dedicated, Sept. 23, 1855, by Bishop Fitzpatrick. The Rev.
Thomas F. Mullady, S. J., preached the sermon on this occasion. The Rev.
John McElroy, S. J., preached at vespers. It was a large brick structure,
built in the Gothic style, after designs furnished by P. C. Keely, architect.
The first pastor was the Rev. David Walsh. The Very Rev. J. J. Williams,
V. G., was pastor of this church at the time he was made Coadjutor
Bishop of Boston. Recently the church and land were bought by the
Boston & Albany Railroad Company, and on its site now stands one of
their large freight houses. The old church was replaced by the new St.
James's church, on Harrison Avenue, which was built under the direction
of the Rev. James A. Healy, now Bishop of Portland. The new church is
Roman classic in style, and is one of the finest churches in the city; it
seats fourteen hundred. It was dedicated April 10, 1875, by Archbishop
Williams. Its present rector is Rev. Thomas Shahan.
In 1853 a lot of land on Tremont Street was bought by the Catholic
Germans, with the design of building a new and larger church. This
church was actually begun, and the walls carried a few feet above the
foundations, before it became apparent that it was projected on a scale too
large for the means of the congregation ; and the work was consequently
discontinued in 1855. The sudden illness of the pastor, and his consequent
absence in Europe, also contributed greatly to this untoward result.
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN BOSTON. 531
A large district lying chiefly in Roxbury, between the Providence Rail-
road and Washington Street, and having many Catholic families within it,
was still unprovided with a church. In 1853 a Baptist church on Ruggles
Street was bought, and, after the necessary alterations were made, was dedi-
cated to Catholic worship under the title of St. Francis de Sales, when Father
Rodden preached the sermon. This church was afterward destroyed by
fire, and the present church of the same name, on Vernon Street, projected
by the Rev. George F. Haskins. The new church was completed under the
direction of the subsequent pastor, the Rev. James Griffin. The corner-
stone was laid Sept. 29, 1867, by the Very Rev. P. F. Lyndon, V. G., and the
church was dedicated June 20, 1869. The same clergyman officiated on this
occasion, and the sermon was preached by the Rev. M. J. O'Farrell, then of
Montreal, now of St. Peter's, New York. The present pastor is the Rev.
John Delahunty, who is rapidly redeeming it from debt. In the mean time
the congregation that was gathered in the Ruggles-Street church worshipped
in the chapel of the House of the Angel Guardian.
In the year 1853 occurred, in Charlestown, the incident known as the
" Hannah Corcoran " riot. A young girl, whose real name was Mary
Joseph Corcoran, who together with her mother had recently arrived in this
country from Ireland, was employed as a domestic servant, under the name
of Hannah, in the family of Mr. Carpenter. While there she began to
attend the First Baptist Church, it is said, with the knowledge and consent
of her mother. She was even rebaptized in that church, according to the
Baptist form of immersion. Her mother, after a time repenting of the con-
sent she had given, resolved to bring her daughter back to the Catholic
Church. With this end in view, she took her away from Mr. Carpenter's
house and sent her secretly to Philadelphia. Meanwhile, Deacon Carter,
of the First Baptist Church, had caused himself to be appointed guardian
of the girl, and in that capacity proceeded to demand her return. The Rev.
P. F. Lyndon, then pastor of St. Mary's, Charlestown, who was known to
have been consulted by the mother, was appealed to. Some suspicious or
malicious persons set a rumor afloat that the girl was forcibly detained
either in the church vestry or in the priest's house ; and a repetition of the
scenes which took place at the burning of the convent was for a time
threatened. Inflammatory articles appeared in the newspapers ; the pastor
of the First Baptist Church, the Rev. Thomas F. Caldicott, prayed and
preached in a manner to arouse the feelings of his auditors; and finally
hand-bills were distributed, inviting " the friends of liberty " to assemble
from all quarters on the evening of March I, in front of the Catholic
church on Richmond Street, and there demand that the girl be produced.
As there was no mistaking the meaning of this proceeding, and as threats
of tearing down the church were freely uttered, the Mayor of Charlestown —
Hon. Richard Frothingham — resolved to be prepared to repress any at-
tempts at violence. He ordered out the City Guards, which responded with
full ranks, and the marines at the Navy Yard were held in readiness to act
532 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
in case of need. One hundred men of the police force of Boston were sent
over to assist the local officers. The street immediately in front of the
church, between Union and Austin streets, was barricaded. The mob as-
sembled at the time appointed. The mayor proceeded to the scene, and, in
the presence of a display of force, read the Riot Act, and ordered the
multitude to disperse, which it did about midnight, without attempting any
violence. Next day the mother of Hannah Corcoran made affidavit, which
was published in the papers, to the effect that she knew where her daughter
was, and that she would be forthcoming in a short time. March 5, the girl,
accompanied by her mother, returned from Philadelphia, and again placed
herself under the protection of Deacon Carter. Notwithstanding this, the
excitement continued for some days, and the church had again to be pro-
tected from mob violence on the night of March 8. Soon after this, how-
ever, the trouble was over, and the public mind settled down to its normal
condition. This was the last riot of the kind we read of in our annals.
On April 13, 1853, another effort was made in the Legislature to have
the State indemnify the Catholics for the damage done by the burning of
the Ursuline Convent by a mob. James Egan, a Catholic member of the
Legislature and a member of the Suffolk bar, made an eloquent and
powerful speech in favor of the bill, and it passed to a second reading
by a large majority. It was, however, finally rejected by a vote which
stood — yeas, 1 1 1 ; nays, 120.
On April 20 of this year the Rev. P. F. Lyndon was appointed pastor of
SS. Peter and Paul's church, South Boston, in place of the Rev. Terence
Fitzsimmons, removed.
About this time the bishop purchased a plot of four acres of land in
Roxbury, on the Dedham turnpike. This he intended for the site of a con-
vent for the Sisters of Notre Dame. A convent of this order stands there
now, and is used as a novitiate of the order and an academy for young
ladies. Its success is chiefly due to Sister Aloyisus, the first Superior.
On Sunday, Sept. 25, 1853, Mons. Bedini, Papal Nuncio to Brazil, as-
sisted at mass at the cathedral, and Bishop O'Reilly, of Hartford diocese,
preached. On the following Sunday the Nuncio officiated pontifically in
the same place; and during the subsequent week visited the various public
and Catholic institutions of the city, and was hospitably entertained by
some of the citizens.
The mission of Nuncio Bedini not being clearly defined nor correctly
understood, his travels in the United States gave rise to various misconcep-
tions on the part of the Protestant populace, and led to some civic com-
motions in a few places. In 1854 a false rumor having spread that the
Nuncio was to pay a second visit to Boston, a mob of two or three hundred
disorderly persons assembled, February i, before the bishop's house, about
midnight; but beyond uttering insulting cries, intended for the ears of the
Nuncio, nothing was done. The mob seemed to be inflamed by a false re-
port which had gained credence in the States to the effect that Bedini, while
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN BOSTON. 533
Governor of Bologna, in 1848, was the prime mover in the conviction and
execution of certain Red Republican agitators of Italy.
Nov. 3, 1853, the Catholic clergy of Boston established, by subscription
among themselves, a fund for the purpose of giving aid to each other in
case of sickness or incapacity from old age. This foundation is still in a
flourishing condition, and is of great utility.
At the rededication of SS. Peter and Paul's church, Broadway, November
27, the bishops of Boston, Albany, and Hartford were present, and the Rev.
Dr. Ryder, S. J., preached the sermon.
The number of Catholic children baptized in Boston in the year 1853
was four thousand one hundred and seventeen, showing a probable Catholic
population of about eighty thousand souls.
The burning and subsequent rebuilding on the same site of the church
in South Boston led to an important legal decision regarding the rights of
pew-owners under such circumstances. The case is known as Fields vs.
Tighe ; and the decision established the fact that the legal rights of pew-
owners perish with the destruction of the church, and do not revive even if
another is rebuilt on the same site. Notwithstanding this decision, the
bishop satisfied the claims of the pew-owners in an equitable manner.
On March 26, 1855, a committee of the Legislature, accompanied by
twelve or thirteen others not of the committee, paid a visit of officious as
well as official inspection to the Catholic academy and convent in Roxbury,
known as the Academy of Notre Dame. The members of the committee, as
soon as they were admitted, scattered themselves over the whole house, and,
without waiting for any guidance, entered every room, chapel, and dormi-
tory, and inspected every cellar, garret, and closet in the building. They
insisted on seeing and conversing with every inmate of the house, lest, per-
chance, as they said, any should be detained there against their will. This
uncalled-for suspicion and insolent intrusion were very annoying to the nuns
and pupils, and were greatly resented by the Catholic community. Indeed,
it may be said that in all decent society the conduct of the committee was
condemned ; and the members were everywhere subjected to well-merited
ridicule. So decided was the public censure, that the Legislature investi-
gated the conduct of its committee, and finding that one of the members —
Mr. Hiss — had been particularly ungentlemanly in the convent visitation,
they expelled him by a vote of the House, May 12, 1855.
January 20, of this year, the Rev. John J. Williams was appointed rector
of the cathedral in Franklin Square.
The attendance at the Lenten services at the church of the Holy Cross
continued this year to be immense, notwithstanding the fact that the base-
ment of the new St. James's church was then opened and provided with
similar services, which were also largely attended.
Sept. 10, 1856, a contract was made for building a wing of a new structure
in which to conduct the academy at Roxbury. This building was finished
in the spring of the following year. Up to that time the school was con-
534 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
ducted in a frame dwelling-house which stood upon the land when pur-
chased. The centre and a fine chapel are now completed.
The lot on which the House of the Angel Guardian now stands, on
Vernon Street, was bought from the Norfolk Land Company, about the
close of this year. Meanwhile, certain lands belonging to the city, on Lev-
erett Street, and known as the Jail lands, were purchased with the intention
of building thereon a college for boys and a Catholic church, both to be in
charge of the Jesuits. It being found difficult to obtain the removal of cer-
tain restrictions on these lands, in the year 1857 they were surrendered to
the city, and the proper steps taken to secure a suitable lot. at the South
End for the same purpose. A division of opinion among the Land
Commissioners of Boston about the expediency of selling any of the city
lands for Catholic church purposes, and some popular opposition mani-
fested in the public press and otherwise, retarded the negotiations for a
time; but a suitable lot was finally secured. Boston College stands on
this lot.
This year Bishop Fitzpatrick showed such symptoms of failing health
that, with the advice of his physicians, he resolved to retire for awhile from
active duty. He passed the summer months at Worcester College, and in
the fall of that year took a trip to the Adirondack Mountains, for the pur-
pose of recruiting his health. He returned greatly benefited, but not com-
pletely cured, so that he had to work with caution, and take frequent rests
during the year 1858.
The Rev. Michael Moran, the present pastor of St. Stephen's church,
was ordained a priest of this diocese, Aug. 15, 1857, by Bishop Bacon, of
Portland. Thirty-two acres of land for a Catholic cemetery were this year
purchased, within the limits of Dorchester and Roxbury. Dec. 3, 1858,
the Rev. John Rodden died at the bishop's residence. Father Rodden was
a fertile writer for the Catholic papers of his day, and was for a time editor
of the Boston Pilot, which was established in the year 1838, by Patrick
Donahoe. The present editor is John Boyle O'Reilly, — a celebrated poet
and a distinguished Irish patriot.
The foundation of the church of the Immaculate Conception, on Har-
rison Avenue, was laid in the spring of the year 1858, and the completed
structure — one of the finest stone churches in the city — was opened for
divine worship, March 10, I86I.1 Archbishop Hughes, of New York,
preached the dedicatory sermon. The high altar and two side altars were
consecrated by the bishops of Newark, Brooklyn, and Hartford. The
Bishop of Boston, having dedicated the church, celebrated mass pontifi-
cally. The Rev. James A. Healy — then Chancellor of the Diocese, now
Bishop of Portland — conducted the ceremonies. A procession, consisting
of about fifty Jesuit scholastics and thirty priests all in surplices, followed
by seven bishops vested in their official robes, started from the adjoining
college, and, entering the church from Harrison Avenue, took places in and
1 P. C. Keely, of Brooklyn, N. Y., was the architect of the church.
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN BOSTON. 535
about the sanctuary. A well-trained choir, supported by a powerful organ,1
rendered the music in a most acceptable manner. The sermon at vespers
was preached by the Cardinal Archbishop of New York, then Bishop of
Albany. The first pastor of this church was Father McElroy, S. J.
In the spring of this year the question of discontinuing the reading of
the Protestant version of the Bible in the public schools was agitated.
The Catholics complained that while the public schools were professedly
non-sectarian, and only used by them as such in the absence of Catholic
schools, the practice did not strictly correspond with the theory. All the
pupils, of whatever denomination, were obliged to recite from the Protestant
Bible, to the exclusion of the Douai version, which the Catholic Church
approves. The Lord's Prayer was recited with a closing doxology as an
integral part thereof, which in that connection was strange to Catholic ears.
Protestant hymns, such as Old Hundred, were sung by all the children in
common, led by their teachers ; and the Ten Commandments were taught
and recited in the form in which they are given in the Protestant Bible. A
boy named Whall, a pupil in the Eliot School, refused, with the approval of
his parents, to recite these passages of Scripture, and was consequently
severely flogged for disobedience. He was afterward, with a number of
other boys who followed his example, suspended from attendance at the
school, and the parents notified that if the boys would not consent to con-
form to the rules of the school, they could not be readmitted. They would,
moreover, under these circumstances, be liable to arrest and imprison-
ment for truancy. In the latter case they would be sent to the city pen-
itentiary, where they would be wholly under the control and at the mercy
of the keepers and instructors, who were all Protestants, and known to be
animated with a spirit of proselytism. To avoid this graver danger, the
bishop advised the parents to direct their boys to submit, under protest,
for the time ; and promised to take immediate steps to have the rules
amended, and these grievances removed, by the proper authorities. With
this end in view the bishop addressed a letter to the School Committee, in
which he clearly set forth the objections of the Catholics and the principles
involved in the case, and urgently pleaded for a change in the regulations,
in the interest of peace, justice, and fair play. Consideration of this pro-
posal was indefinitely postponed by the committee, and the matter was not
satisfactorily arranged till some years afterward. Most of these objection-
able practices are now discontinued in the public schools of Boston. The
Catholics, in the mean time, are building schools of their own, preferring
a religious education for their children to any system of mere secular in-
struction, and making great sacrifices for their support.
An action for assault in the above case was brought into court against
Mr. Cook, the teacher who had punished the boy Whall. The action was
dismissed, Judge Maine being on the bench. Durant was counsel for Cook,
and Sidney Webster for Whall. This trial, and the speeches made by the
1 The organ was built by Hook & Co., of Boston.
536 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
opposing counsel, attracted a great deal of public attention at the time, and
aroused considerable bitterness and uncharitableness on both sides. Soon
after this, Father Wigget, S. J., opened a school for boys at the North End,
which subsequently grew into the large and very successful school for many
years connected with St. Mary's church, and still conducted by the Jesuit
Fathers, on Cooper Street, in a school-building purchased from the city.
May 15, 1859, the corner-stone of the new building of the House of
the Angel Guardian was laid by Bishop Fitzpatrick, in the presence of the
Mayor and Common Council of the city of Roxbury, and an immense con-
course of people. Dr. Cummings, of St. Stephen's church, New York,
preached the sermon. July 19, of this same year, the new orphan asylum
for girls, on Camden Street, was dedicated under the patronage of St.
Vincent, the apostle of charity.
The corner-stone of St. Francis de Sales' church, Charlestown, — the
building of which is due to the Rev. George A. Hamilton, — was laid on a
site secured for that purpose on the summit of Bunker Hill proper. Arch-
bishop Purcell, of Cincinnati, was the preacher on this occasion. The
Mayor of Charlestown, many city officials and ex-mayors, and the Com-
mandant of the Navy Yard were present; and the multitude in attendance
was computed to be not less than six thousand.
This year, 1859, witnessed the first step in the celebrated transfer of
the old cathedral lands on Franklin Street to Isaac Rich, who intended to
use the site for building warehouses to accommodate the rapid increase of
the business of Boston. The deeds, owing to various legal complications,
were not actually passed till Sept. 30, 1860. The last mass in the old
cathedral was celebrated Sunday, Sept. 16, 1860. The bishop officiated,
assisted by the Rev. James Fitton, the Rev. John J. Williams, and the Rev.
Michael Moran. An address, explaining the necessity of this step, pre-
pared by the bishop's own hand, was read to the people by his secretary,
the Rev. James A. Healy, now Bishop of Portland.
The Catholic college on Harrison Avenue, known as Boston College, was
dedicated Sept. 17, 1860. Rev. R. Fulton, S.J., was its best known president.
The first purchase of land for a site for a new cathedral was made Oct.
24, 1860. The property was known as the Williams Estate, situated- on
the corner of Washington and Maiden streets. The adjoining estate, bor-
dering on Union-Park Street, was added to this, January 3 of the following
year. The price paid for these lots was $75,000. By the purchase of ad-
ditional lots, in order to obtain sufficient space not only for a cathedral, but
for a residence for the bishop and his clergy, the entire proceeds of the sale
of the old cathedral, amounting to $i 15,000, were expended on land for the
new. On this land there stood two dwelling-houses, one of which, until the
building of the new episcopal residence, was occupied by the bishop. On
June 23 the architect, P. C. Keely, came to view the site, and soon after
began to prepare the plans for the basement. It was decided to build of
Roxbury stone, with granite trimmings, in the Gothic style. The ground
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN BOSTON. 537
was broken for the foundations, April 27, 1866, and the corner-stone was
laid June 25 of the same year. The basement chapel was ready for occu-
pancy towards the close of 1873, and was first used for divine service on
December 7 of that year. The chapel was in use for some time previously.
In the mean time the cathedral congregation, after using the Melodeon
Hall for some time, worshipped in Castle-Street church, which was pur-
chased from Harvard College, and dedicated as a pro-cathedral, Dec. 2,
1 86 1 . This ceremony was performed by the Very Rev. J. J. Williams, V. G.,
who was then administering the affairs of the diocese, the bishop being
absent in Europe for his health. The Rev. James A. Healy preached the
sermon, and the Bishop of Burlington officiated at vespers.
Since the opening of the new cathedral, Castle-Street church is still used
every Sunday for the accommodation of those in the immediate neighbor-
hood. Recently a French congregation was organized, and given the use
of it until they leased Freeman Place chapel, which they now use.
Jan. 3, 1861, by order of the bishop, mass was said in all the Catholic
churches of the city and diocese, at which the people were invited to assist
and pray for the preservation of the Union, and the maintenance of peace ;
as the signs of the times unfortunately indicated the near approach of civil
war.
The church of St. Francis de Sales, on Bunker Hill, Charlestown, was
dedicated June 17, 1862. The Right Rev. Louis Goesbriand, Bishop of
Burlington, officiated, and the Right Rev. Sylvester Rosecranz preached
the sermon. There were present about forty priests, and a very great mul-
titude of people. The present pastor is Father Supple.
The church on the corner of Hanover and Clark streets, known as the
New North Church, was purchased by the Catholics, September 26, of this
year. It was dedicated under the title of St. Stephen's, November 27, and
took the place of the church on Moon Street, which had become much too
small for the crowded Catholic population of the North End. The Very
Rev. John J. Williams performed the ceremony, and Dr. Cummings of New
York preached the sermon. The first pastor was the Rev. George F. Has-
kins. This church was greatly enlarged and very much improved in its
interior, in 1875, through the exertions of the Rev. M. Moran, who suc-
ceeded Father Haskins as rector of this church. The debt contracted is
being rapidly reduced.
During this same year 1862, the twelfth Congregational church on Cham-
bers Street, at the West End, was purchased by the administrator of the dio-
cese. This church was rededicated under the title of St. Joseph's. The Rev.
Hillary Tucker, then in charge of a small chapel in the vicinity, celebrated
the mass. The Rev. John Boyce, of Worcester, preached the sermon. The
first pastor was the Rev. P. T. O'Reilly, now Bishop of Springfield. The
first Catholic services in this vjcinity were conducted in a small hall by Dr.
Manahan, and afterward by the Rev. John J. Williams. Such was the in-
crease of Catholics in this section of the city that it was soon found neces-
VOL. in. — 68.
538 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
sary to enlarge this church also. This work was begun during the pastorate
of the Rev. Bernard O'Reilly, and was completed by the Very Rev. P. F.
Lyndon, vicar-general of the diocese, after he took charge of the church,
Sept. 5, 1870. A fine house in the rear of the church on Allen Street was
secured as a residence for the clergy. The basement of the church was
fitted up for a Sunday-school, and the whole interior beautifully frescoed
and elegantly decorated. The present pastor is the Rev. W. J. Daly.
A new church near South Boston Point, which was built under the direc-
tion of the Rev. P. F. Lyndon, was dedicated March 19, 1863, under the
title of the Gate of Heaven, the corner-stone having been laid May i, 1862.
The Rev. Bernard A. Maguire, S. J., preached on the occasion. Bishop
McFarland officiated, the Bishop of Boston being abroad at the time. A
commodious pastoral residence was afterward built in this parish on a lot
adjoining the church, by the Rev. James Sullivan. The Rev. Emeliano Gerbi,
O. S. F., was for some years pastor of this church. The present rector is
the Rev. Michael F. Higgins, who has built a convent in the vicinity of the
church to serve as a residence for the Sisters of St. Joseph, who conduct the
schools of the parish. These schools were established by the Rev. William
A. Blinkinsop, soon after the foundation of the Catholic school for girls near
the church on Broadway, which is taught by the Sisters of Notre Dame.
The convent of the Sisters of St. Joseph is a handsome brick structure,
complete in all its appointments, and in its arrangement of rooms and
apartments is a model in its way. Some of the rooms are used for classes
studying the higher English branches and music. It is provided with a
spacious play-ground for the children attending the parochial school.
This year also witnessed the erection of a large brick church in Dorches-
ter, which was built and paid for through the exertions of the Rev. Thomas
McNulty, its first pastor, and was dedicated April 7, 1864, under the title
of St. Gregory. The Very Rev. P. F. Lyndon, V. G., performed the cere-
mony, assisted by the Rev. Thomas Scully and the Rev. W. J. J. Denvir.
The sermon was preached by the Rev. James A. Healy, chancellor of the
diocese. The present pastor of this church is the Rev. W. H. Fitzpatrick,
who has just completed a small church in Neponset, to be entitled St.
Ann's. The Home for destitute children began this year.1
Bishop Fitzpatrick returned from Europe Sept. I. 1864, and the priests
of the diocese, to the number of eighty, assembled at his house to welcome
him home, and presented him with a formal address and other testimonials
of their regard. The presentation was made in behalf of the clergy by the
1 The Home for Destitute Catholic Children to No. 10 Common Street. The corner-stone
began as the Eliot Charity School, No. 9 High of the Home on Harrison Avenue was laid Oc-
Street. In 1864 an association was formed con- tober, 1870, and the building occupied the sum-
sisting of the Rev. James A. Healy, Patrick mer following. The celebrated Irish Dominican
Donahoe, Patrick H. Powers, Owen Lappan, preacher, Father Tom Burke, delivered in the
Charles F. Donnelly, and others. In January, fall of 1872, in the Jubilee Colosseum, a lecture
1866, the Sisters of Charity took charge of the in aid of the Home, which realized the extraordi-
Home, which was soon afterwards transferred nary sum of §11,435.
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN BOSTON.
539
Rev. Menassas P. Dougherty, of Cambridge. The bishop was not much
improved in health by his stay in Europe, and about the middle of Decem-
ber was taken so seriously ill as to cause great alarm to his friends. The
Very Rev. John J. Williams was appointed, in 1866, Coadjutor, with right of
succession, to Bishop Fitzpatrick.
Bishop Fitzpatrick died at the episcopal residence, near the site of the
new cathedral, Feb. 13, 1866. The funeral services were conducted at the
pro-cathedral, corner of Washington and Castle streets, February 16, the
members of the St. Vincent de Paul's society having kept the night watches
over the remains in the mean time. Bishop Goesbriand celebrated the mass
of requiem ; the Rev. James Fitton assisted, and the Rev. Edward O'Brien,
of New Haven, and the Rev. A. Sherwood Healy were the deacons. Arch-
bishop M'Closkey delivered the funeral oration. The bishops present on
this occasion were Archbishop Spaulding, of Baltimore, and Bishops Tinon,
Loughlin, Bacon, Bailey, McFarland, Conroy, and Williams. A procession,
formed of the clergy and the various Catholic societies of the city, moved
from the church to the cemetery in South Boston, accompanied and followed
by an immense multitude, and amid the tolling of the bells of the city.
Soon after this, March 1 1, Bishop Williams was consecrated at St. James's
church, of which he was the rector, and immediately entered upon the duties
of his office. He went to reside at the cathedral residence April 2, 1866,
and the Rev. James A. Healy succeeded him in the rectorship of St. James's
church. Bishop Williams was then about forty-four years of age, his birth-
day being April 27. On the 2d of April of this year the Rev. William
Byrne was appointed to succeed the Rev. James A. Healy in the office of
the chancellor of the diocese. The Rev. T. Maginness, the present pastor
of the church of St. Thomas, Jamaica Plain, was ordained priest this year.
The corner-stone of the chapel of the Carney Hospital was laid Aug.
12, 1866. The sermon was preached by the Rev. Fr. Hitzleberger, S. J. The
late Andrew Carney, of Boston, had purchased in 1863, at a cost of $13,500,
a house and a lot of land on Dorchester Heights, South Boston. This he
presented to the Sisters of Charity for the purpose of having a hospital
established there. By his will a sum of money amounting to $56,722 was
also left towards this hospital and the chapel above mentioned. A part of
the centre and one entire wing of the hospital has been for some years
completed, at a cost of $108,423. The hospital was incorporated in 1865,
but has no endowment, and subsists entirely by the charity of the public
and the payments made by such patients as require, and can afford to pay
for, private rooms. It is open to all classes and creeds, and its wards are con-
tinually filled by charity patients. It has a staff of surgeons and physicians,
recruited from the ranks of the medical profession of Boston, and is at
present in charge of Sister Simplicia and fourteen other Sisters of Charity.
The number of patients treated in 1879 was five hundred and forty. There
is a debt of about $30,000 still due on the building. On the medical staff
of this institution we find such eminent physicians as Drs. Bowditch,
540 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Blake, Shattuck, Langmaid, Dvvight, and Hasket Derby, the celebrated
ophthalmist.
The Sisters of the Good Shepherd, whose mission is the reformation of
fallen women, established a house of their order in Boston, May 2, 1867.
This was at first located on Allen Street. The sisters afterward moved to a
larger house at Mount Pleasant, and now occupy a brick building erected
for them and their wards near Brookline. This house is supported wholly
by charitable offerings and the profits of the industry of the sisters and
inmates, and continues to make every year many conquests from the ranks
of vice and infamy.
A church in the fourth section of East Boston, built by the Rev. James
Fitton, the indefatigable pastor of the Island Ward, was dedicated under the
title of Star of the Sea, Aug. 16, 1868.
A portion of South Boston, in the vicinity of St. Augustine's chapel, was
set off in 1868 as a separate parish, and the charge of building a new church
and administering its affairs conferred on the Rev. D. O. Callaghan.1 He
entered on his duties August 22, and has ever since worked with such zeal
and energy, and has so completely secured the cordial co-operation of his
flock, that the church is now completed. The church is of brick, in Gothic
style, and is one of the most successful efforts of its architect, P. C. Keely.
Nov. 8, 1880, the pastor had the happiness of seeing the crowning cross
placed on the lofty and elegant spire of a church which is hardly sur-
passed by any in the city. The work is so far paid for that the ordinary
revenues of the church will probably suffice to meet the interest on the
debt and the current expenses.
Jan. 4, 1869, the Rev. Thomas Maginness took charge of a church in
Jamaica Plain, now a part of the city of Boston, which was begun by the
Rev. P. O'Beirne, of St. Joseph's, Roxbury. The corner-stone of this church
was laid August 15 of this year. The sermon was preached by the Right
Rev. P. T. O'Reilly, Bishop of Springfield. The church was dedicated, when
completed, under the title of St. Thomas Aquinas, Aug. 17, 1873. There is
now attached to it a convent and a novitiate of the Sisters of St. Joseph, who
teach the schools of the parish. The church is of brick, of a good style
exteriorly, and very elegantly finished within. The third church in East
Boston was begun Aug. 29, 1869, of which the Rev. Jos. Cassin is now pas-
tor. The sermon on the occasion of laying the corner-stone was preached
by the Rev. R. W. Brady, S. J. This church was dedicated Nov. 6, 1873,
under the title of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. The Rev. James
Fitton celebrated the mass, and the Rev. Edward H. Welch, S. J., preached
the sermon. This church is also of brick, and is neatly frescoed by Brazer.
There is a school here also.
During the absence of Bishop Williams in Europe, from Oct. 19, 1869,
to June 27, 1870, — that is, during the period of the Vatican Council, —
Vicar-General Lyndon administered the affairs of the diocese.
1 Ordained priest June 29, 1865.
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN BOSTON. 541
The Rev. Thomas Lynch, pastor of St. Patrick's church, Northampton
Street, died March 27, 1870, and was succeeded by the Rev. Joseph H.
Galligher. Through the exertions of the latter, a new church of ample
dimensions was built on Dudley Street, near Mount Pleasant.
The corner-stone of the new St. Patrick's church, on Dudley Street, was
laid by Bishop Williams July 13, 1873. The Rev. Father Freitag, of the
Redemptorist order, preached the sermon, and the music was rendered by
the Boston Catholic Choral Union. St. Patrick's new church was dedicated,
Sunday, Dec. 5, 1880, by the archbishop, assisted by the Very Rev. Wil-
liam Byrne, V. G. ; the Rev. M. Moran, the Rev. P. Ronan, the Rev. W. J. J.
Daly, and the Rev. Michael Gilligan, acting as deacons. The Right Rev.
P. T. O'Reilly preached, and about forty priests attended. There is also a
fine pastoral residence, which stands on the lot adjoining the church.
The new house of the Little Sisters of the Poor, now so well and so favor-
ably known in Boston, is located in the neighborhood of this church. These
sisters came to Boston, April 20, 1870, and rented a house on Springfield
Street, to be used as a home for destitute aged persons. In a short time
they were able to purchase an estate on Dudley Street, Mount Pleasant, and
had the chapel of their new home dedicated Dec. 8, 1874. They first occu-
pied the new central part of their main building July 5, 1880. Mother
Cecilia was the first superior. They now care for ninety old men, and
eighty-six women. The sisters find no difficulty in procuring, through
charitable donations, sufficient food for the poor under their care, and are
only embarrassed in providing room to lodge them. This is one of the
most deserving charities in the city, and citizens of all creeds and classes
seem to recognize this fact, judging from the liberality of their donations
in clothing, provisions, and money.
The corner-stone of the large and splendid church edifice at Meeting-
House Hill, Dorchester district, which was projected and built of stone
quarried on the site, under the direction of the Rev. Peter Ronan, its pres-
ent rector, was laid Aug. 24, 1873. Father Freitag preached the sermon
on this occasion also. The church is to be dedicated under the title of
St. Peter's.
This year a small Baptist meeting-house on North Bennet Street was
bought, and converted into a Catholic church for the use of the Portuguese
and Italians. The old title of the Moon-Street chapel, St. John the Baptist,
was given to this church. The Portuguese alone now worship in this church,
the Italians having built a small chapel of their own on Prince Street, which
is named for St. Leonard of Port Maurice. The present pastor of the Portu-
guese is the Rev. H. B. M. Hughes, a venerable missionary father who has
seen service in many lands, and speaks as many languages. The pastor of
the Italians is Father Boniface, of the Franciscans.
Under the auspices and management of the Catholic Union of Boston a
grand festival of three days' duration was conducted in Music Hall, about
Nov. 13, 1873, in honor of Pope Pius IX. This was one of the most bril-
542 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
liant and impressive demonstrations ever made by the Catholics of Boston.
An eloquent address was delivered on the occasion by the Rev. Kent Stone,
a recent convert to the church.
June 12, 1874, a fourth church in East Boston was dedfcated in honor of
the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Rev. L. P. McCarthy is the pastor. The
church was built under the supervision of that /veteran church builder,
the venerable missionary and church historian, the Rev. James Fitton, from
whose records these facts in relation to East Boston are gleaned.
A fourth church in South Boston was also dedicated this year. This was
the new St. Vincent's church, built under the direction of the Rev. Michael
Lane, since deceased. The mass of dedication was celebrated by the Rev.
VV. A. Blinkinsop, and the sermon delivered by Father Wissell, of the Re-
demptorist missions.
July 31, occurred the lamented death of the Rev. George A. Hamilton,
pastor of St. Mary's, Charlestown. At his funeral the vicar-general of the
diocese celebrated the mass in the presence of the bishop, a large number
of the clergy, and a multitude which not only crowded the church, but the
space and street in the vicinity. Bishop Lynch, of Charleston, S. C., de-
livered the panegyric. The Rev. John O'Brien, at present engaged in build-
ing a large stone church in East Cambridge, was for several years a
co-laborer of Father Hamilton, at St. Mary's, Charlestown.
August 30, the bishop solemnly dedicated the new St. Augustine's
Church, South Boston. The Rev. F. E. Boyle, of Washington, D. C.,
preached in the forenoon, and the Rev. A. S. Healy at vespers. There is a
fine brick pastoral residence attached to this church.
Sept. 7, 1874, the Rev. William Byrne was appointed rector of St.
Mary's church, Charlestown, and was succeeded by the Rev. T. A. Metcalf.1
The St. Mary's Infant Asylum in Dorchester was opened, Sept. 8, 1874.
A church in Wrest Roxbury, built by the Rev. Thomas Maginness, was
burned down this year, December 15. It was afterward rebuilt, and was
for some years in charge of the Rev. R. J. Barry, now building a church in
Hyde Park.
The Rev. James A. Healy, rector of St. James's church, having been
made Bishop of Portland, Maine, his brother, the Rev. A. S. Healy, for
some years professor at Troy seminary, and for a time rector of the cathe-
dral, was appointed pastor of that church, April 5, 1875. He died soon
after his removal to St. James's. His funeral, which took place October 23,
was attended by about one hundred and fifty clergymen, the members of
the Catholic Union, and a congregation which completely filled the large
1 About this time arrived from Rome, where Metcalf succeeded the Rev. William Byrne, in
they had completed their studies, the Rev. Theo- the office of chancellor. He was also for a time
dore A. Metcalf, the Rev. J. B. Smith, the Rev. rector of the Cathedral, and conducted therein
J. B. McMahon, and the Rev. J. E. Millerick. some of the most important ceremonies that it
The two latter are now stationed at St. Stephen's, has yet witnessed, — such as the dedication, the
Boston; the Rev. J. B. Smith is the present rec- conferring of the pallium, and the solemn re-
tor of the Cathedral, and the Rev. Theodore A. quiem for Pope Pius IX.
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN BOSTON. 543
new church on Harrison Avenue. The Rev. Thomas Shahan succeeded
him, Oct. 29, 1875. He has already made some progress in reducing a
heavy debt which has continued to burden this parish ever since the build-
ing of its first church. He has also established a parochial primary school
for boys.
April 1 8, 1875, St. Stephen's church, enlarged and improved was re-
dedicated, Bishop O'Reilly, of Springfield, preaching the sermon.
On May 2, 1875, occurred one of the most notable events in the history
of the Catholic Church in. Boston. This was the ceremony of conferring
the pallium of an archbishop on the Right Rev. John J. Williams. The new
cathedral, not then quite finished, was temporarily fitted up for the oc-
casion. Bishop McNeirney, of Albany, celebrated the solemn high mass,
Bishop Goesbriand preached the sermon, and the pallium, which had been
brought from Rome by an ablegate of the Pope, — Mons. Cesar Roncetti,
accompanied by his secretary, Dr. Ubalbi, and a nobleman of the Papal
Guard, Count Marefoschi, — was conferred on Archbishop Williams by Car-
dinal M'Closkey, of New York, in the presence of all the bishops of the
ecclesiastical province of New York, and the clergy of this and the neigh-
boring dioceses, and before an assembly of about six thousand persons.
The music was rendered in a creditable manner by the cathedral choir, aug-
mented for the occasion. A sanctuary choir of boys and young men, which
had been trained by Mdlle. Gabrielle de la Motte, sang portions of the ser-
vice with rare precision, correct expression, and remarkable power. This
choir continues to sing in the sanctuary of the cathedral every Sunday.
The ceremonies were conducted in an admirable manner by the Rev. T. A.
Metcalf and the Rev. Hugh Roe O'Donnell. The preparations for the oc-
casion were made under the efficient supervision of the Very Rev. P. F.
Lyndon, vicar-general of the diocese.
On June 6, 1875, in accordance with the provisions of a law which,
through the efforts of Senator Flatley and others, had just passed the Legis-
lature, the first Catholic religious service was held in the chapel of the State-
prison by the Rev. William Byrne, pastor of St. Mary's church, Charles-
town. These services were continued every Sunday for the benefit of the
Catholic prisoners, and are still held in the chapel of the new prison at
Concord. The same religious privileges are also enjoyed by the Catholic
inmates of the reformatory and charitable institutions of the city.
The centennial of Daniel O'Connell, the emancipator of Ireland, was
celebrated in Boston, August 6 of this year. The Rev. Robert Fulton, S. J.,
preached a sermon in St. James's on the occasion, and the evening was
observed by a grand civic banquet, at which appropriate speeches were
made by several distinguished citizens.
The Rev. Robert Fulton, S. J., having by his wise and energetic man-
agement succeeded in paying off the entire debt of the church of the
Immaculate Conception, the archbishop, Aug. 15, 1875, solemnly conse-
crated the church, assisted by the bishops of Albany, Burlington, Spring-
544 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
field, and Providence. The Bishop of Burlington preached the sermon
at vespers. The Rev. R. Fulton, S. J., is now pastor of a church in New
York.
The dedication of the new cathedral of the Holy Cross, which with the
exception of the spires was now completed, took place Dec. 8, 1875. His
grace, the Archbishop, officiated. Bishop Lynch, of Charleston, S. C.,
preached the sermon. All the bishops of the new ecclesiastical province of
Boston were present, together with about one hundred and fifty priests, and
a congregation that not only filled the immense auditorium of the cathe-
dral, but overflowed by thousands into the adjoining streets. The Catholic
Choral Society rendered the music, a sanctuary choir of boys and young
men taking their share in the work, to the great satisfaction of all.
The new episcopal residence being completed, the archbishop and the
clergy of the cathedral began to occupy it about this time. This residence
was built by the contributions of the clergy of the diocese, and stands at the
corner of Harrison Avenue and Union-Park Street. The burial crypt under
the cathedral being now ready, the body of Bishop Fitzpatrick, which had
been temporarily deposited in a tomb in St. Augustine's cemetery, was
transferred to the cathedral and laid in a vault with the usual religious rites
and ceremonies.
April 20 of this year the Rev. John Delahunty succeeded the Rev. James
Griffin in the rectorship of St. Francis de Sales' church, Vernon Street, and
now occupies that position. On April 25 of this year occurred the death
of a priest whose history brings us back to the palmy days of the old ca-
thedral on Franklin Street. This was the Rev. Nicholas J. O'Brien, who
was ordained priest in 1842, and was for some years pastor of the church
in East Boston.
The mission fathers of the Society of the Holy Redeemer, who are chiefly
engaged in giving missions in the various parish churches in aid of the
regular pastors, purchased the Dearborn estate in Roxbury. On this site
the corner-stone of a new church edifice, one of the finest in New England,
was laid with the usual pomp and ceremony on May 28, 1876. Bishop
Healy preached the sermon. On the night of that same day the house
occupied by the fathers caught fire in some mysterious way, and was burned
to the ground. They have since replaced the old mansion by a more com-
modious dwelling-house. The church was dedicated April 7, 1878.
At the dedication of the splendid new church of the Germans on Shaw-
mut Avenue, May 27 of this year, the venerable Father Weninger, S. J.,
preached the sermon. The present rector of the cathedral, the Rev. J. B.
Smith, was appointed Sept. 23, 1876. The new convent at Jamaica Plain
was dedicated March 8 of this year.
St. Mary's, Endicott Street, having been for many years too small for
the congregation, was at length taken down and replaced by the present
magnificent edifice, which was constructed after designs furnished by P. C.
Keely, and under the supervision of his son. The principal part of the
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN BOSTON. 545
work was done under the direction of the Rev. R. W. Brady, S. J. But he,
having been made superior of his province, was obliged to transfer his resi-
dence to Baltimore. The Rev. W. Duncan, S. J., took his place, and having
brought the church to completion, had it dedicated by the archbishop,
Dec. 1 6, 1877. The Rev. R. W. Brady, the former pastor, preached the
sermon ; the event stands among the most important in the history of the
Catholic Church in Boston.
The Rev. Michael Lane, of St Vincent's, South Boston, having died
February 2 of this year, was succeeded by the Rev. W. J. Corcoran, the
present pastor.
A grand requiem service for Pope Pius IX., who died Jan. 7, 1878, was
conducted in the cathedral, January 14, in the presence of one of the largest
audiences that ever assembled there. Quickly following this event came the
death of the Very Rev. P. F. Lyndon, V. G., which occurred at the pastoral
residence of St. Joseph's Church. He died April 18, and was buried at the
cathedral, April 22. The archbishop officiated at the obsequies, and the
Rev. James Fitton preached the funeral sermon. The funeral procession
from St. Joseph's church to the cathedral was very large, and was witnessed
by a great multitude, of people, who lined the streets through which the
funeral cortege passed.
The Rev. William J. Daly succeeded the vicar-general as pastor of St.
Joseph's Church, and is now in the exercise of that office. The school
question came up again for discussion this year, and the archbishop de-
livered an address to his clergy on the subject.
July 15, 1878, the office of vicar-general was conferred on the Rev. Wil-
liam Byrne, of St. Mary's church, Charlestown. The fiftieth anniversary of
this church — the oldest in the diocese — was observed with becoming
solemnity, May 10, 1879. The archbishop celebrated mass pontifically in
the old church. Bishop O'Reilly preached an historical discourse on Sun-
day, and the Rev. R. J. Barry, now of Hyde Park, preached on the following
day, when the festival closed with a meeting 'of the parishioners in Monu-
ment Hall, at which addresses were made by the Very Rev. J. J. Power,
V. G., of Worcester, and several members of the congregation.
November 3, the new convent of the Sisters of St. Joseph, near the
Church of the Gate of Heaven, in South Boston, was opened and dedicated.
Feb. 20, 1880, the Ladies of the Sacred Heart — another order of teach-
ers— were introduced into Boston, and located their school temporarily in
a large house on Chester Park at the South End.
The most recent event of importance in the history of the Catholic
Church in Boston is the purchase of a large estate in Brighton for the pur-
pose of erecting thereon an ecclesiastical seminary in which the future
priests of the diocese are to be educated. This institution will be con-
ducted by certain priests of the congregation of St. Sulpice, Paris. This
order has successfully conducted for many years similar institutions in
Montreal and Baltimore.
VOL. HI. — 69.
546
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
The present condition of the Catholic Church in Boston may be summed
up as follows: The probable Catholic population of the city in the year
1880 was about 150,000 souls. These worship in 30 churches, attended by
90 priests, under the guidance pf their archbishop. There are 10 parochial
schools, chiefly conducted by the Sisters of Notre Dame. They have 3 col-
leges and academies in the city, 5 orphan asylums, 3 hospitals, and a home
for their aged poor. The societies that flourish among them are religious
sodalities and pious confraternities. They have also many temperance so-
cieties and literary associations. Conferences1 of the charitable society of
St. Vincent de Paul are established in every parish, and are continually at
work among the poor, relieving their wants, and laboring for their im-
provement.2
1 The first conference of this society was es-
tablished in St. James's Parish, in 1862. In ad-
dition to its labors among the very poor, this
society, to some extent, continues the work of the
Young Catholics' Friend Society, which for a
quarter of a century did excellent service among
the poorer children of Boston, providing them
with proper clothing, bringing them into the Sun-
day-schools, and teaching them Christian doctrine.
2 The material o$ this chapter is for the most
part taken from the original records preserved
in the archives of this diocese, and from the
files of the Boston Pilot. [It may be well to
remember that Dr. J. G. Shea contributed to the
American Catholic Quarterly Re^'iew, April, 1881,
an important paper on "The Earliest Discus-
sion of the Catholic Question in New England."
— ED.]
CHAPTER XV.
CHARLESTOWN IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS.
BY HENRY HERBERT EDES.
r I^HE one great event in the history of Charlestown, that which gave
-*- her not only a national, but a world-wide fame, — the Battle of Bunker
Hill, — has been described in another chapter.1 The conflagration which
attended that struggle reduced the town to ashes, and the inhabitants from
affluence to poverty. During the siege of Boston, that part of Charlestown
which was above the peninsula, or " without the Neck," was mostly occu-
pied by the American troops ; and it was not until after the evacuation of
Boston, in March, 1776, that a portion of the former inhabitants began to
return, and to repair their waste places. The British Annual Register1*1 for
1775 observed: —
" Charlestown was large, handsome, and well built, both in respect to its public
and private edifices ; it contained about four hundred houses, and had the greatest
trade of any port in the province, except Boston. It is said that the two ports cleared
out a thousand vessels annually for a foreign trade, exclusive of an infinite number
of coasters."
In his Historical Sketch of Charlestown? Dr. Josiah Bartlett 4 says con-
cerning the rebuilding of the town : —
"A few . . . were able to erect convenient dwellings, whilst others, like their
hardy predecessors, were only covered with temporary shelters. ... By a considera-
tion of mutual sufferings, it was the endeavor of every individual to meliorate the
1 By Dr. Hale, on "The Siege of Boston." only till May 25, 1787. There is another sketch
2 Page *I36. in Barber's Historical Collections of Massachusetts,
8 Printed in 2 Mass. Hist. Coll., ii. 163-84 pp. 364-374. In 1838 Mr. William Sawyer (H.
(1814). I would here acknowledge my indebt- C. 1828) published large extracts from the town
edness to Dr. Bartlett's pages for some facts records in the Bunker Hill Aurora (newspaper),
which appear to have been nowhere else pre- which had its early home in the " stone build-
served. Dr. Bartlett wrote also a brief sketch of ing" erected about 1822 by William and Nathan-
the town, which appeared in the first two num- iel Austin at the junction of Main, Harvard,
bers of the American Recorder, December 9 and Bow, and Pleasant streets. The Aurora was
13, 1785, the first newspaper printed in Charles- published from July 12, 1827, till Sept. 24, 1870.
town, or in the county of Middlesex. It lived 4 Cf. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., i. 325.
548 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
condition of his neighbor; to cultivate harmony, and unite for the benefit of the
whole. A block-house,1 erected by the enemy at the place [Town Hill] originally
fortified against the natives, was
appropriated to the discharge of
our civil duties, to the public
services of religion, and to the
education of youth. Here, un-
influenced by political dissensions, we gave our first suffrages for a chief magistrate
and legislators under the constitution of this Commonwealth. . . . The principal
streets were widened, straightened, and improved, and the Market Square was regu-
larly laid out soon after the opening of the town, in 1776 ; to facilitate which a lottery
was granted, and the State taxes were remitted for seven years."
In October, 1796, President Dwight visited Charlestown, while on a
journey through New England. His account of this place,2 presents a
picture different from that drawn by Dr. Bartlett. He says : —
" The town is built on the southern and western sides of the peninsula. The
streets are formed without the least regard to regularity. The middle of this penin-
sula is a hill, extending almost the whole length, and crowned with two beautiful
eminences, the south-eastern named Breed's Hill, and the other, Bunker's Hill. On
the southern and western declivities of this hill stands Charlestown. After it was
burnt, the proprietors had a fair opportunity of making it one of the most beautiful
towns in the world. Had they thrown their property into a common stock ; had the
whole been then surveyed ; had they laid out the streets with the full advantage fur-
nished by the ground, which might have been done without lessening the quantity of
enclosed ground ; had they then taken their house-lots, whenever they chose to do so,
as near their former positions as the new location of the streets would have permitted,
— Charlestown would have been only beautiful. Its present location is almost only
preposterous. Such a plan was, indeed, sufficiently a subject of conversation ; but a
miserable mass of prejudices prevented it from being executed. The houses in this
town are all new, many of them good, and some handsome. The situations of some
of them, also, are remarkably pleasant, particularly those in the southern declivity of
Breed's Hill.3 . . . After the town was burnt, a part only of its former inhabitants
returned. Its additional population has been formed by strangers from many places,4
and of almost every description. The bonds by which they are united are, of course,
feeble. . . . The inhabitants of Charlestown are not a little divided in their parochial,
town, and public concerns ; and this division prevents much of the pleasure of life
which might otherwise be found on so charming a spot."
Between April 7, 1775, and Jan. 26, 1776, there is no record of any meet-
ing of the inhabitants or the selectmen. At the selectmen's meeting, Jan.
26, 1776, routine business was transacted, and a warrant issued " in His
1 It occupied a parf of the site of the present taken by Samuel Swan, Jr., and Benjamin Hurd,
meeting-house of the First Parish. Jr., in February, 1789, and still in the town
2 Dwight, Travels in America (London ed., archives. June 19, 1786, Mr. [Eleazer?] Wyer
1823), i. 426-37. was ordered to take a census of the inhabitants ;
8 Cf. notes on pp. 552-53, 557, 562. but the result of his labors, if he obeyed the
4 This fact is fully attested by the census order, is not known to be now extant.
CHARLESTOWN IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 549
Majesty's name," for the annual March meeting, which was appointed for
March 6, at 9 o'clock A. M., at Mr. Jeremiah Snow's, innholder in Charles-
town. It was also agreed that the sufferers by the burning of the town
should be publicly requested to make out just estimates of their losses,
and hand them, before March 6, to Seth Sweetser 1 at Medford, Nathaniel
Frothingham at Maiden, Stephen Miller at Woburn, or John Larkin at
Cambridge. At the March meeting town officers were chosen, — Judge
Gorham,2 the moderator, being placed at the head of the selectmen ; but
the principal business re-
lated to the losses just re-
ferred to. A committee
of thirteen, consisting of
the selectmen, Richard Devens,3 and five others, was appointed to estimate
the loss sustained by the town and the inhabitants, " agreeable to the
recommendations of the Continental Congress." This committee was in-
creased (April 3) to nineteen, any seven to constitute a quorum. An
advertisement in the public prints requested the inhabitants to hand in
schedules of their losses to the committee, which was to " meet at the
house of Mr. Cooper, innholder, in Menotomy [ Arlington] , on Tuesday,
the 26th of this instant March, at nine o'clock A.M., and so from day to day
till the business is completed." The estimates, as revised by the committee,
aggregated £117,982 $s. 2d. sterling.4 Besides the meeting-house, a court
house,5 county house, prison, work-house, and two school-houses, more
than three hundred and eighty dwellings and other buildings were burned,
June 17, 1775, rendering the whole population of the peninsula, about two
thousand persons, homeless.
On May 4, 1776, the selectmen issued their warrant, "in the name of
the government and people of the Massachusetts Bay," for a town-meet-
ing on the sixteenth, when it was voted to send three representatives to
the General Court, which was to convene at Watertown on the twenty-
ninth ; and to raise no money by taxation, the town's income being suf-
1 Cf. Ante, II. 320, 321. iii. 239.) The cut on the next page follows his
2 The Hon. Nathaniel Gorham was the most portrait by Henry Sargent, now in the Charles-
distinguished man who ever made Charlestown town Branch of the Public Library, to which it
his permanent home. His public services were was bequeathed by Miss Charlotte Harris. Cf.
various and important ; and the matrimonial Wyman, Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown,
alliances of his children and grand-children were pp. 289-92 ; and Frothingham, History of Charles-
remarkable. His portrait is in possession of town, chap, xxv.-xxix.
Mr. Brooks Adams (H. C. 1870). Cf. Thach- 4 The purpose in making this estimate was
er's Funeral Sermon, June 19, 1796; Welch's to secure, if possible, partial or complete com-
Eulogy, June 29, 1796; and Wyman, Genealogies pensation for the damages suffered. Several
and Estates of Charlestown, pp. 423-25. persistent but fruitless efforts were made to that
3 Richard Devens was the founder of his end. Cf. U. S. House of Rep. Doc. No. 55,
family. He was born here in September, 1721. Twenty-third Congress, First Session, 1833-34.
In early life he was a cooper ; but he became a The original schedules of property destroyed
highly prosperous merchant, and at his decease, fill two folio volumes. They afford an interest-
Sept. 20, 1807, at the age of eighty-six, he left ing glimpse of the social life of that period.
an estate valued at about $120,000, a part of 5 An unsuccessful attempt was made in 1812
which was bestowed in charity. (Cf. Panoplist, to re-establish the courts of law in Charlestown.
550
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
ficient to defray " the charges that will unavoidably arise." On May 28
the town —
" Voted, unanimously, that it is the mind of the inhabitants that our represen-
tatives be advised, that if the Continental Congress should (for the safety of the
Colonies) declare them independent of the Kingdom of Great Britain, they will,
in that case, solemnly engage with their lives and fortunes to support them in that
measure."
CHARLESTOWN IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS.
551
The town clerk * was instructed to communicate this vote to the town's
representatives.
Of all who sought the protection of the British Crown, upon the evac-
uation of Boston, only one, Thomas Danforth (H. C. 1762), was a resi-
dent of Charlestown. He was the only lawyer in the town ; had been an
addresser of Hutchinson ; went to Halifax ; was proscribed and banished ;
and died in London, March 6, i82O.2
In August, 1776, a committee was sent to represent to the Council that
the quota of ten men called for by the General Gourt had been already
furnished, the town claiming credit for John Larkin, enlisted at Cambridge,
five negroes, belonging respectively to Thomas Russell, [the Rev. ?] Mr.
Prentice, John Austin, Jr., Isaiah Edes, and Caleb Call, and for Ebenezer
Frothingham, Thomas Orgain, Samuel Adams, and John Green, who had
enlisted in neighboring towns ; but the claim was not admitted, and
Charlestown immediately responded to this and all subsequent calls, with
alacrity.3
1 Seth Sweetser. (Cf. ante II. 321.) His sue- when he was unanimously elected first city clerk,
cessors in office were : Walter Russell, who was He resigned Jan. 25, 1848. His long and faith-
of the Cambridge family, chosen March 2, 1778 ;
I ft < m it I r
'V
Samuel Swan, March i, 1779; Timothy Trumball
(H. C. 1774), March 6, 1780; Samuel Swan, Oct.
23, 1782 ; Sam-
uel Holbrook,
tne schoolmas-
ter, March 3,
1783; Samuel Payson (H. C. 1782), March 5,
1787; Phillips Payson (H. C. 1778), Aug. 3,
ful services to town and city, and the accuracy,
precision, and elegance of his records were re-
1801 ; John Kettell, at one time postmaster,
March 3, 1806; Samuel Devens, March 2, 1812;
John Kettell, March i, 1813; David Dodge,
schoolmaster, March 7, 1814; John Kettell,
March 2, 1818; Charles Devens, Sept. 30,
1822 ; and David Dodge, March 7, 1825. Mr.
Dodge was annually rechosen till April 26, 1847,
cognized by the city government in resolutions
adopted when his resignation was accepted,
March r5- His portrait, by Wetherbee, is in
possession of Mr. Abraham B. Shedd, who was
chosen his successor in office April 10, 1848.
Mr. Shedd's successors were : Charles Poole,
elected March 24, 1851 ; Daniel Williams, Jan.
13, 1862 ; and John T.
Priest, the present
assistant city clerk of
Boston, who was elected
May 23, 1871.
2 Cf. Columbian Cen-
tineliof May 20, 1820; Sabine,Z0yfl/«/J
of the American Revolution, \. 358, 359.
8 In January, 1787, the town sent the Charles-
town Artillery Company (organized June 17,
552
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY*OF BOSTON.
The attention of the people was at once given to rebuilding. A contro-
versy early arose between the inhabitants and the former residents as to
the finances and the right of the former inhabitants to vote in town-meet-
ings upon questions involving their individual proprietary rights, which
were to be affected by the proposed amending of the public highways.
This trouble was not composed till the close of I778.1 The next year the
town voted to cover all the wells and vaults, which were then in a danger-
ous condition. In 1780 (June 24) it was " Voted, that all the streets, lanes,
etc. within the Neck shall be laid open from the first day of May next ; "
and a committee appointed to consider the alterations proper to be made
in the streets reported (September 29), estimating the cost at ^2,6oo2
The alterations were to be confined principally to the main street and
streets about the Square. The same year John Leach,3 a prominent sur-
veyor of Boston, made a plan4 of the proposed
changes, which were sanctioned by an act of
the General Court the next year. When the
new lines were established, building proceeded
rapidly. The oldest house6 now standing is the
mansion of the late Captain Robert Ball Edes on Main Street. It was built
b.y his great-grandfather, David Wood,
Sr., soon after the reoccupation of the
town, on the site6 of his former place of
abode, which was burned, June 17, 1775. *~~^r
It is remarkable also as the birthplace of Samuel Finley Breese Morse
1786) to aid in suppressing Shays 's Rebellion,
and in consequence was excused from sending
any of its militia. In 1804 were organized the
Warren Phalanx, once commanded by Lieut.-
Governor Samuel T. Armstrong, and the Charles-
town Light Infantry, called "the Blues," for a
time under the command of General Austin.
1 Cf. Town Records, viii. 321-23.
2 The actual cost was .£4,595, y- id. plus
$80, the alterations being more extensive than
was at first contemplated. The street commit-
tee's accounts were not finally settled until Nov.
19, 1791. (Cf. Town Records ix. 299, 300, 377.)
After the great fire of August, 1835, Charles
River Avenue, Warren, Joiner, Chambers, and
Water streets were widened or straightened, Gill
Street discontinued, and Chelsea Street laid out.
In advocating these improvements Dr. William
J. Walker (H. C. 1810), the distinguished physi-
cian and surgeon, then resident here, was ear-
nest and foremost. Dr. Walker was a son of
the Hon. Timothy Walker, and cousin to the
Rev. Dr. James Walker. (Cf. Mr. Dillaway's
chapter in Vol. IV. for an account of Dr.
Walker's munificent bequests to various insti-
tutions of learning.) In 1838 a board of street
commissioners was established. Mr. Samuel
Morse Felton (H. C. 1834), civil engineer, now
of Philadelphia, was one of the original board.
8 Cf. N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., xix, 255, 313.
4 Cf. Editor's Introduction to the present
volume, under the years 1775, I?8o, 1794, 1818,
1830, and 1848 ; and Admiral Treble's chapter.
5 Cf. note on p. 562.
6 This estate was in the possession of Robert
Chalkley, prior to 1656. His widow, Elizabeth,
sold the property to Josiah Wood in 1676, and
it remained in the uninterrupted possession of
his descendants for nearly two centuries. It
was inherited, in 1818, by Thomas Edes, Jr.,
whose mother was a daughter of David Wood,
CHARLESTOWN IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS.
553
THE EDES HOUSE.
THE FIRST DWELLING ERECTED AFTER
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE TOWN,
JUNE 17, 1775.
,
(Y. C. 1810), the inventor of the electric telegraph, who was born, April
27, 1791, in the front chamber of the second story, on the right of the
front door of entrance. A few
months previous to that time, his
father, the Rev. Dr. Jedediah
Morse, had accepted the hospital-
ity of his friend and .parishioner,
Mr. Thomas Edes, Sr., while the parsonage, on Town Hill, was in building.
Some delays occurring in the work, Dr. Morse's visit was prolonged until
after the birth of his eldest and most distinguished child.1
In 1783 the roadway over Bunker Hill was opened. The barracks, built
there by the British during their occupancy of the town, were sold and re-
moved about the same time. In 1785 (February 7) the town chose Nathaniel
Sr. (Cf. note on p. 562.) The heirs of Captain present century. Cf. Wyman, Genealogies and
Robert Ball Edes conveyed it, in 1864, to Leon- Estates of Charlestown, pp. 197, 322, 323, 895,
ard B. Hathon, who adapted the lower story of 1045-47.
the house to purposes of trade. The cut rep- l Cf. Belknap Papers (5 Mass. Hist. Coll.), ii.
resents the building as it appeared early in the
VOL. III. — 70.
254. Professor Morse died April 2, 1872.
554
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Gorham, Samuel Nicholson, Captain Joseph Cordis, David Wood, Jr., John
Larkin, Dr. Josiah Bartlett, Isaac Mallett,
John Austin, Samuel Swan, and Joseph
Hurd 1 a committee to petition the Gen-
eral Court to grant the petition of Thomas
Russell, Esq., and others for liberty to build a bridge across Charles River
where the ferry was then established.2
An act was obtained the same year, the
corporators being Governor
Hancock, Thomas Russell,
Nathaniel Gorham, James .^ s£^~~~l&\ yi— !XX—
Swan, and Eben Parsons.
The
was com-
bridge
pleted in 1786, and was opened June 17, amid "the greatest splendor
CHARLESTOWN IN 1789.
and festivity."3 It was 1,503 feet long and 43 feet wide. In 1791 the town
actively opposed the building of a bridge from West Boston to Cam-
1 Mr. Hurd was representative in 1814. Cf.
Edes's History of the Harvard Church in Charles-
town, pp. 123, 124, 264, 265.
2 The same committee was instructed to op-
pose the petition of John and Andrew Cabot for
liberty to build a bridge from Lechmere Point to
New Boston.
8 Cf. Bartlett's Historical Sketch of Charles-
tons, pp. 172, 173; American Recorder (news-
paper) for June 20, 1786 ; and Massachusetts
Magazine for September, 1789 (i. 533), which
describes the structure and contains a view of
it, reproduced in the woodcut in the text, showing
also the Square and the new meeting-house with
its unfinished spire. The bridge was built by
Samuel Sewall. [In the manuscript note-book
of Robert Gilmor, of Baltimore, who was in Bos-
ton about this time, there is a view of Charles-
town from the west end of Cambridge bridge.
It is in the Boston Public Library. A view of
Boston, from Breed's Hill, is given in Mr. Stan-
wood's chapter in Vol. IV., and follows an en-
graving in the Massachusetts Magazine, June,
1791 (iii. 331). There is in the Gentleman's
Magazine, February, 1790, a crude view of Bun-
CHARLESTOWN IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS.
555
bridge; and in 1796 assumed a similar attitude toward a proposed bridge
from Chelsea to Moulton's Point.1 In 1804 a new bridge to Boston was
proposed. The town voted, "unani-
mously," to oppose the scheme. In
March, 1828, however, an act creat-
ing the Warren Bridge Corporation
was passed by the Legislature, in
which John Skinner, Isaac Warren, John Cofran, Nathaniel Austin, Eben-
ezer Breed, and Nathan Tufts2 were
named as corporators. This enter-
prise, in which General Austin 3 was
a prime mover, and which continued
to enlist his zealous support for more
than thirty years, was violently opposed4 by the Charles River Bridge Cor-
poration, whose property was to be
materially injured thereby.5 The
shares fell from $1,950 in 1823 to
$825 in 1824, during the agitation
of the project, even before the charter was granted.6 In November, 1835,
the town voted to avail of the option offered by the Legislature to take
one half of Warren Bridge and half the bridge fund, preparatory to open-
ker Hill, from the slope of Copp's Hill, taken
by an officer of the twenty-second regiment, at
the time when Howe was encamped there, after
the battle. The ruins of Charlestown, the tents
of the encampment, the wharfed shore, with a
few buildings and a ship on the Boston side, are
shown. A view taken from the Navy Yard about
1825 is in Edes's History of the Harvard Church
in Charlestown, p. 133. It was drawn by the wife
of the late Commodore James Armstrong, U.S.N.
A view of Charlestown in 1826, from the dome
of the State House, is in Snow's Boston, p. 316.
A view of Charlestown, from Copp's Hill, about
1840, is in Barber's Historical Collections of Mas-
sachusetts, p. 364. — ED.]
1 Chelsea Bridge was built in 1803, at a cost
of $53,000, under an act of the Legislature pass-
ed in 1802, incorporating certain persons for the
purpose of building a turnpike road from Salem
to Charles River Bridge in Charlestown. One
half of the 2,400 shares in this bridge belonged
to the Maiden Bridge Corporation, which was
chartered in 1787 to build a bridge at Penny
Ferry (ante, I. 393). The bridge cost .£5,300,
and was built in six months. Cf. Massachusetts
Magazine for September, 1790 (ii. 515), fora de-
scription and view of the structure,
2 Nathan Tufts, a wealthy citizen, who died
in October, 1835, aged 71, was uncle to Charles
Tufts, the founder of Tufts College, who was
born July 17, 1781, and who died Dec. 24, 1876.
3 The Hon. Nathaniel Austin was High
Sheriff of Middlesex and Major-General of the
Massachusetts Militia at the same time. His
mother was a daughter of Dr. Isaac Rand (H. C.
1761), a distinguished physician and president
of the Massachusetts Medical Society. General
Austin died here April 3, 1861, in his ninetieth
year. Cf. Wyman, Genealogies and Estates of
Charlestown, pp. 32, 785, 786. See p. 564, note.
4 The contest between these rival corpora-
tions was long and bitter. Both decisions of the
Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts (1828,
1829) were against the older corporation (6 Pick-
ering, 376 ; 7 Pickering, 344). The case was
appealed to the Supreme Court of the United
States, where it was argued for the plaintiffs
by Mr. Webster. At the January term in 1837
Chief-Justice Taney delivered the opinion of the
court, affirming the decree of the Supreme Judi-
cial Court of Massachusetts, (u Peters, 420.)
5 June 6, 1823, the town had voted to me-
morialize the General Court in favor of a peti-
tion then before it, that the contemplated new
bridge should be toll-free to foot-passengers.
6 See a valuable report upon the affairs of
the Charles River Bridge Corporation, printed
in Mass. House of Reps. Doc., No. 71, 1827.
556 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
ing it as a free bridge, to be maintained by Charlestown and Boston jointly ;
adopted a series of resolutions, and chose a large committee to confer with
the Boston authorities, and to promote the success of the plan. In 1845 a bill
to re-establish the tolls1 on both bridges was introduced into the House of
Representatives. Resolutions were adopted protesting against the passage
of the bill, "as hostile to the interest of this town, and particularly burden-
some to the laboring classes; utterly unnecessary, uncalled for, and in the
highest degree arbitrary and oppressive," since there was still an unex-
pended balance of $30,000 belonging to the bridge fund. The town's
representatives were instructed to oppose the bill. Tolls were re-established
for the last time by an act passed in 1854 to raise funds to rebuild or repair
both bridges and to provide a permanent repair fund of $100,000.
The Middlesex Canal, one terminus of which was in this town, at the
Neck, was chartered in 1793. The survey was completed in the summer of
1794, and the canal was navigable in i8o3.2 In 1836 Boston Avenue, now
known as Warren Avenue, was laid out. The same year the Charlestown
Wharf Company and the Charlestown Branch Railroad were incorporated.
The first named corporation was authorized to hold the water-front from
the Navy Yard to Lynde's Point. The Fitchburg Railroad Company, char-
tered in 1842, succeeded to the Branch Railroad, and acquired much of the
Wharf Company's property. The Middlesex Horse Railroad Company
was incorporated April 29, 1854.
In 1800 the National Government was seeking a site for a naval station.
On March 27 it was " Voted, that it is the sense of this meeting that it will
be of the greatest consequence to this town to have the Continental Dock
and Navy Yard established in it ; " and a committee was appointed to ascer-
tain at what price the necessary land could be had. $73,200 was the price
demanded by the seven owners of the land. This sum was deemed ex-
orbitant, and another committee was appointed to make a just appraisal
of the estates, under oath. They adjudged the land worth $25,180. The
town then chose Dr. Aaron Putnam 3 its agent to proceed to the seat of
government, and endeavor to
secure the location of the Navy
Yard here. He was instructed4
to oppose the Noddle's Island
site, and to call to his aid the
influence of our distinguished
townsman, the Hon. Samuel
1 A previous, but unsuccessful, attempt had 8 Dr. Putnam was subsequently appointed
been made in 1840. agent for the United States; and in 1801 pur-
* Cf. Caleb Eddy, Historical Sketch of the Mid- chased and took about sixty-five acres of land
dlesex Canal. Boston, 1843. I" r&>7 a canal for a Navy Yard. Cf. Wyman, Genealogies and
through Back (now Warren) Street was pro- Estates of Charlestown, p. 780.
jected, but the plan miscarried. [See Mr. C. F. 4 His letter of instructions is recorded in the
Adams, Jr.'s chapter in Vol. IV. — Ed.] Town Records, ix. 461-63.
CHAKLESTOWN IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS.
557
Dexter, Jr.,1 who was then one of the United States Senators from Massa-
chusetts. The mission was successful.2
The establishment of a naval station in this town marked an epoch in its
history. The ruin and desolation caused by the war had given place to
prosperity, and the town had as-
sumed the aspect of an enter-
prising and successful community.
The public buildings had been re-
built, the streets improved, and the
principal ones furnished (1795 ) with signboards ; 3 the church and the schools
were re-established on firm foundations, and were in a flourishing condition ;
the fire department was well organized and well regulated ; and the finances,
which had occasioned much solicitude,4 were in a satisfactory condition.
Notwithstanding the slender resources of the town after its destruction,
the schools were not permitted to languish. As early as Sept. 15, 1777, a
committee was chosen to " fit up the Block House with all convenient
speed for a school-house." In 1780 the appropriation for schools was
;£6ooo; and in 1781 ;£ioo "hard money." The next year there were three
schools, — one within the Neck, taught by Timothy Trumball (H. C. 1774),
sj* the town clerk ; and two others under the
pvtrttfaz&s care of Samuel Tufts and Lieutenant
. _ Samuel Cutter. In 1792 Samuel Payson
(H. C. 1782), the town clerk, was in charge of the grammar school.
March 27, 1793, on petition of the town, an act was passed incorporat-
ing Richard Devens, Nathaniel Gorham, Josiah Bartlett, Aaron Putnam,
1 The Hon. Samuel Dexter (H. C 1781),
LL.D., resided in Charlestown for several years
on a fine estate, extending from Main Street to
High Street on the southerly side of Green
Street, now covered by Dexter Row, the Win-
throp Church, and the mansions of Mr. Rhodes
Lockwood, the Hon. Edward Lawrence, and ex-
Mayor Sawyer. Cf. Story, Sketch of the Life of
Samuel Dexter ; and Reminiscences of Samuel
Dexter, by Sigma, [See Mr. Morse's chapter on
"The Bench and Bar," in Vol. TV.— ED.]
The Hon. Franklin Dexter (H. C. 1812),
LL.D., son of the preceding, was born here,
Nov. 5, 1793.
2 Cf. Admiral Treble's chapter in the present
volume, and Edes's Memorial of Josiah Barker,
Boston, 1871. The dry-dock was constructed
by the Hon. Loammi Baldwin (H. C. 1800),
1827-34.
3 It was not until 1826 that the streets gener-
ally were named and the numbering of the houses
begun. Feb. 7, 1831, the
selectmen voted to num-
ber the houses within
the Neck "at once" at the
public charge. Town-Hill
Street was named Har-
vard Street on petition of Governor Everett and
others, dated Nov. 7, 1836.
4 In 1787-88 the town was obliged to sell
some of its lands to liquidate its most press-
ing debts. In ,
1795 an elabo-
rate report on
the finances,
signed by Josiah Bartlett and Matthew Bridge,
is recorded. A new system for keeping the
town's accounts was recommended, which sub-
sequently was adopted.
558 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Joseph Hurd, Nathaniel Hawkins, and Seth Wyman as trustees of the
Charlestown Free Schools. In 1841 the number of trustees was increased
to eleven. Aug. u, 1800, the trustees of
^ie scno°ls were authorized to erect a new
building on the site of the school-house
within the Neck to accommodate the
school, the town meetings, and other public business. It was built of
brick, contained a town hall l and a room for the selectmen, and stood
on the site of the present old Harvard School-house on Harvard Street.
The cost was not to exceed $3,000. In 1837 that part of the nation's
" surplus revenue " which was apportioned to Charlestown,2 was set apart
for the benefit of the schools. It was invested by the town treasurer
in town notes. Only the interest could be expended ; and it was pro-
vided that this income should in no way supersede the annual appropri-
ation for school purposes. In May, 1846, when the trustees' annual report
was considered in town-meeting, its recommendation of an appropriation
of $500 for teaching music in the grammar schools was indefinitely post-
poned. At the annual March meeting in 1831 an attempt was made to
establish an English high school.3 A petition for such a school was re-
ceived and referred to the trustees for consideration. In the following
April they reported upon the project which the town voted to indefinitely
postpone. In 1836 there were two determined efforts in the same direc-
tion. In March, 1837, the trustees, as requested, reported a scheme for
such a school, which was ordered to be printed ; and they were requested
to look for a proper site and report their conclusions to the town. It was
not until 1847-48, however, during the first year of the city government,
that the High School-house on Monument Square was built. The corner-
stone was laid Oct 7, 1847.
For five years (1778-1783) the Block House, already mentioned, served
as the Sunday home of the people. June 24, 1780, it was voted to let the
Training-field to the highest bidder, and use the rental to repair it. Sept.
10, 1781, the town chose a committee4 "to solicit subscriptions of the good
friends of this town throughout this State to assist us in building a meeting-
house." Oct. 27, 1782, the town voted to give to the First Parish " that
piece of land commonly called Town-house Hill, for the sole purpose of
1 In 1815 a proposal to buy the Baptist Hall, is now occupied in part by George S. Mon-
meeting-house on High Street (see pp. 561-63) roe as a market, at the northerly corner of Main
for a town hall was rejected because of the in- and Pleasant streets.
cumbrances upon the estate. March u, 1816, - It amounted to $19,230.34, and was re-
the town voted to buy the Robbins Tavern lot ceived May 5 and July 5, 1837. The total amount
on the Square at the corner of Harvard Street, distributed in Massachusetts was $1,338,173.58.
for $5,200, at the same time rejecting a proposal 3 April 4, 1825, the town voted to indefinitely
to buy the Warren Tavern lot. During the next postpone the second article in the warrant for
two years a commodious building, three stories the meeting: "To know what measures the town
high, with cupola, was erected at a cost of about will take to establish a Classical Free School."
$20,000. (Cf. Town Records, xi, 25.) 4 Judge Gorham, Capt. Cordis, David Wood,
The Warren Tavern, in which was Warren Jr., Capt. Eliphalet Newell, and John Brazier.
CHARLESTOWN IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 559
erecting thereon a house for the public worship of God ; " provided it was
built within five years, otherwise the grant was to be void. The new meet-
ing-house was built the same year. It was a wooden structure,1 72 feet
long, 52 feet wide, and 27 feet high to the eaves.2 It had an imposing
tower and an elegant steeple,3 designed by Charles Bulfinch (H. C. 1781),
of Boston. The building faced the east, being directly opposite the head
of Henley Street.4
In 1804 the meeting-house was widened to 84 feet; and Dr. Bartlett
tells us "a convenient chapel, 26 feet long, 21 feet wide, and 10^ feet high,
for parish and church meetings, lectures, etc., was built by subscription in
the church [amounting to $411], in 1809," in the garden "of a valuable
parsonage lot, bequeathed, in 1703, by Mr. Richard Sprague."5 March
5, 1803, the Legislature incorporated "a religious society by the name of
the 'First Parish in the Town of Charlestown.' " The town opposed the
petition of John Larkin and others for this act.6 The present brick meet-
ing-house was dedicated July 3, 1834. In 1852 the building was remodelled
and a Norman tower added; into which, in 1868, a chime of sixteen bells"
was introduced. They were given by Miss Charlotte Harris, of Boston, in
memory of many of her ancestors who worshipped here.
The Rev. Thomas Prentice (H. C. 1726) retired to Cambridge in 1775,
and lived there, in the house in which he was born, during the remainder
of his- days ; although he continued his ministrations to his scattered flock
here. Dr. Budington says : " After an interval of something like three
years, the public worship of God and the ordinances of religion were
re-established under the ministry of the now aged Prentice." The first
1 Frothingham, History of Charlestown,\>. 161, Maiden, but proceeded to the College at Cam-
gives a lithographic northwest view of the build- bridge, attended by the Vice-President [John
ing as it appeared in 1799. Adams], Mr. Bowdoin, and a great number of
2 Cf. Bartlett, Historical Sketch of Charles- gentlemen." Although he was not officially re-
town, p. 170; and Budington, History of the ceived here, he made one social call — on Major
First Church, p. 235. Benjamin Frothingham, a cabinet-maker, whom
8 Aug. 29, 1797, the town voted to raise he had known in the army, and who was a mem-
eight hundred dollars to discharge the debt in- ber of the Cincinnati.
curred in building this steeple which, including 5 Captain Richard Sprague was the most mu-
the tower of 72 feet, was 162 feet in height from nificent benefactor of the Charlestown Church.
the ground to the top of the ball. He came from England with his father, Ralph
4 It was in this building that the services in Sprague, about 1628, and died, childless, Oct. 7,
commemoration of Washington were held, Dec. 1703, although he had been twice married. By
31, 1799. Cf. Town Records, ix. 452-54. his will he devised a large property to his
When Washington made his northern tour, nephews and nieces, to Harvard College, the
during the first year of his presidency (1789), he poor, the Free School, and to the church. His
passed through Charlestown on Thursday, Oc- uncle of the same name, who died Nov. 25, 1668,
was also styled " Captain." Cf. ante, I. 384,
399 ; Budington, History of the First
Church, pp. 148, 159, 192, 193; Soule,
Memorial of the Sprague Family ; and
Wyman, Genealogies and Estates of
Charlestown, pp. 887-92.
tober 29, when he wrote in his Diary : " Left * Cf. Budington, History of the First Church,
Boston about eight o'clock. Passed over the p. 237.
bridge at Charlestown, and went to see that at 7 Cf. N. E. Hist, and Geneal. Keg., xxiv. 284.
560
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
celebration of the eucharist after the return of the inhabitants occurred
Nov. 8, 1/78, "with great solemnity and fulness of numbers beyond expec-
tation."1 Mr. Prentice died June 17, 1782, at the age of eighty years, and
was buried here with honors.2 His second wife was Rebecca, daughter of
Lieutenant Ebenezer Austin. For nearly five years the church was without
a settled minister. Mr. Joshua Paine, Jr. (H. C. 1784), eldest son of the
Rev. Joshua and Mary Paine, of Sturbridge, received a unanimous call to
the vacant pulpit in November, 1786, and was ordained Jan. 10, 1787. He
was born Dec. 5, 1763. At his graduation the second honor, the salutatory
oration, was awarded him. He received the honorary degree of A.M.
from Yale College in 1787, and died here, of consumption, Feb. 27, I788,3
when in his twenty-fifth year. Dr. Budington remarks: "Mr. Paine was
the last of a long series of pastors who died in the ministry of this church
and were interred in this town."
In November, 1788, a unanimous call was extended to the Rev. Jedediah
Morse (Y. C. 1783), of New Haven, Conn., who was installed here April
30, 1789, the Rev. Dr. Jeremy
Belknap4 preaching the sermon.
Dr. Morse was, ex officio, an
overseer of Harvard College,
and the unsuccessful candidate
of the Orthodox party for the
Hollis professorship of divinity
at Cambridge, in the memorable contest which resulted in the election of
Dr. Henry Ware in 1805. Dr. Morse resigned his pastorate6 in August,
1 Church Records.
2 Cf. ante, II. 319; Budington, History of the
First Church, pp. 140-43, 233, 234.
8 Church Records.
4 Dr. Belknap wrote as follows to his friend
Ebenezer Hazard, for several years Postmaster-
General at New York, and a family connection
of Judge Samuel Breese, whose daughter Dr.
Morse married, May 14, 1789 : —
" Boston, Jan. 24, 1789. . . . And now I must
make an episode. You said in one of your late
letters to me that probably Charlestown people
would soon have to build a house for Mr. Morse.
I let this drop in a conversation with a daughter
of Mr. [Richard ?] Carey, who is one of my con-
gregation ; and ' know one -woman by these pres-
ents ' was never more completely exemplified.
In a day or two it was all over Charlestown ; and
the girls who had been setting their caps for
him are chagrined ; while some of the elders of
the land are really enquiring how, when, and
where the house shall be got. I suppose it
would be something to Mr. Morse's advantage,
in point of bands and handkerchiefs, if this report
could be contradicted ; but if it cannot, O how
heavy will be the disappointment ! When a
young clergyman settles in such a town as
Charlestown there is as much looking out for
him as there is for a 1000 dollar prize in a lot-
tery ; and tho' they know that but one can have
him, yet who knows but 7 may be that one ?
A part of Payne's popularity there arose from
this circumstance [referring to the Rev. Joshua
Paine]. I say a part, for he was really an ami-
able character. A Mr. [John] Andrews, who is
lately ordained at Newburyport, is just such an
object ; and I am told that the linen comes in
largely from the female part of the parish. I
could tell you more, but it would be only expos-
ing the weakness of some good folks. Do tell
Morse, if he is not too far gone, that it will be
much in favor of his popularity, and something
in his pocket, if he can come to Charlestown
with his neck clear of that fatal noose ; but if he
cannot, I shall tremble for him, unless he should
bring a yoke-fellow whom they must worship as
much as they do him." — Belknap Papers (5 Mass.
Hist. Coll.), ii. 97, 98. See also ii. 30, 31.
5 His successors in the First Church pulpit
are named in Dr. Tarbox's chapter in the pres-
ent volume. Among them was the late Rev. Dr.
William Ives Budington (Y. C. 1834), whose
CHARLESTOWN IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 561
1819; and he was dismissed Feb. 22, 1820. He died in New Haven, June
9, I826.1
Dr. Morse was a conspicuous figure in the theological controversies of
New England, which marked the early part of this century; and his literary
works were numerous. He was the author of the first geography printed
in America. His pioneer work appeared in New Haven in 1784. The
American Universal Geography, in two volumes, was brought out in 1792.2
His best known historical work is A Compendious History of New England,
first printed in 1804, the name of the Rev. E. Parish appearing on the title-
page as joint author with Dr. Morse. It was this book which provoked
the controversy between Dr. Morse and Miss Hannah Adams.3 But Dr.
Morse will be chiefly remembered as the leader and special champion of
the Orthodox party in the Unitarian controversy.4 He was prominent in the
efforts which resulted in the establishment of the theological seminary at
Andover, and the founding of Park Street Church in Boston.5 In his own
parish the two parties, Orthodox and Unitarian, were quite evenly balanced,
with a small numerical preponderance in favor of the former. The Unita-
rians, although numbering in their ranks three quarters of all the property
holders of the parish, and nearly all the elements of culture, influence, and
social standing in the town, withdrew peacefully from the church and soci-
ety without demanding any portion of the church funds or plate, or even
challenging their possession by those who remained ; and quietly established
the Second Congregational Society, of which more is to be said presently.
Dr. Morse's ministry was marked by much internal dissension. In 1800
a considerable number of his parishioners withdrew and formed a Baptist
Society. Its first meeting-house was built at the head of Salem Street, on
the corner of High and Pearl streets. It was dedicated May 12, 1801.
The Rev. Thomas Waterman was the first pastor. He was succeeded by the
Rev. William Collier (B. U. 1797) in 1804. The parish was soon involved in
pecuniary and other difficulties ; and the meeting-house, which Dr. Bartlett
describes as " handsome and convenient, with a cupola and bell," passed out
exalted character caused him to be held in the and its author curiously chose to consider the
highest esteem by all who knew him ; and his pamphlet a hidden attack on his Orthodoxy and
excellent history of the church he so faithfully a step towards turning Harvard College into a
Unitarian institution ! See Henry Stevens's
•% Hist. Coll., I., No. 224. — ED.]
•* 3 Zi.KwmtvizVi, Bibliography of Charles-
town, Mass., and Bunker Hill. Boston :
served has placed this community, where he was 1880, — a valuable compilation, — for a list of
known and loved and honored, under lasting Dr. Morse's publications.
obligation to its author. The pulpit is now 4 Cf. Ellis, Half-Century of the Unitarian
vacant. Controversy ; Budington, History of the First
1 Cf. ante, p. 553; Sprague, Life of Jedediah Church, pp. 150-58; and Dexter, The Congre-
Morse, D.D. ; Wyman, Genealogies and Estates gationalism of the last Three Hundred Years,
of CharUstown, p. 686; Duyckinck, Cyclopaedia of pp. 612-26.
American Liter attire, i. 161 ; and Dana, Memoir b The Old South was then the only Congre-
ofthe late Hon. Samuel Dana, pp. 14, 15, gational Church in Boston which had not
2 [The Rev. Dr. James Freeman printed some espoused the Unitarian faith. [See Dr. Tar-
rather damaging Remarks on this book in 1793, box's chapter in the present volume. — ED.]
VOL. III. — 71.
562
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
of its hands. It was purchased in 1816 by the Unitarians.1 The Baptists, in
1810, built another meeting-house on the site of their present edifice on
Austin Street.2 In 1811 there was another and larger secession from the
First Parish to form the First Universalist Society, which built a meeting-
house on the site it has ever since occupied.3 The Rev. Abncr Kneelancl
was its first minister. The Rev. Charles Follen Lee is the present pastor.4
In 1815 the greatest secession in the history of the First Parish occurred.
The Unitarians who withdrew at that time held their first meeting, Dec. 28,
1815, in Massachusetts Hall in the Indian Chief Tavern,5 the Hon. Josiah
Bartlett presiding. It was voted to apply to the Legislature for an act of
incorporation as the Second Congregational Society in Charlestown.6 An
act was granted, Feb. 9, 1816, in which General Austin's name appears
first in the list of corporators. Mr. Thomas Prentiss (H. C. 1811), a class-
mate of Edward Everett and Chief-Jus-
— tices Dunkin and Lane, was ordained
its first pastor, March 26, 1817. He
died Oct. 5, 1817, in his twenty-fifth year. He was succeeded by Mr.
James Walker (H. C. 1814), whose ordina- /i
tion occurred April 15, 1818. Dr. Walker ~l^<+^-^t
resigned his pastorate, Feb. 18, 1839, hav- ^
ing been- called to the Alford Professorship of Natural Religion, Moral
Philosophy, and Civil Polity, in Harvard College," from which he passed
to the presidency of that institution, in i853.8 He preached his farewell
1 Cf. Edes, History of the Harvard Church in
Charlestown, pp. 60-63, 8 1 -88.
2 Their pulpit is now vacant. Cf. A Short
History of the First Baptist Church in Charles-
town. Boston : 1852 ; and Christian Watchman
(newspaper) for Jan. 4, 1828.
8 In Church Court, contiguous to Thompson
Square which was formed, in part, a few years
ago, by cutting off the triangular building then
standing at the northerly junction of Main and
Warren streets, long known as " Crafts' Corner."
4 [See Dr. Miner's chapter in the present vol-
ume.— ED.]
5 This was formerly the mansion of Colonel
David Wood, Jr., a prominent citizen, who was
c^<*
a delegate to the Concord Convention of July,
1779, selectman, member of the school committee,
fireward, etc. He was chosen representative in
1780, but declined serving. He was a director
of the Charles River Bridge corporation. His
daughter Ruth married the eldest son of Judge
Gorham, in 1794 (see p. 549, note). The present
meeting-house of the "society, by a remarkable
coincidence, stands upon the site of Massachu-
setts Hall, on Main Street. Colonel Wood's
mansion stood between his father's — now known
as the Edes Mansion (see p. 553, and note) — on
the north, and the Hon. Samuel Dexter's (see p.
557, note), on the south. Judge Artemas Ward
(H. C. 1783), LL.D., lived nearly opposite Mr.
Dexter, on Main Street, — his estate being next
above the northerly corner of Union Street.
There is a tradition that Colonel Wood's
mansion was built before the Revolution; that
it escaped the flames June 17, 1775; and that it
was occupied during the Siege of Boston by the
British Commissary, Jeremiah Dummer Rogers
(H. C. 1762). The building is still standing on
the northerly corner of Main and Miller streets,
whither it was removed in 1818; after which it
was known as the Eagle Hotel. Cf. Sabine,
Loyalists o' the American fiez'olution, ii. 232.
8 Its name was changed to the New Church
in Charlestown in 1819, and to the Harvard
Church in Charlestown in 1837.
? Cf. ante, II. 318, note.
8 Dr. Walker was officially connected with
the college as overseer, fellow, or president, from
1825 till 1860, and from 1864 till his death, Dec.
23, 1874. He was also a Fellow of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences. During his resi-
dence here he was President of the Trustees of
the Charlestown Free Schools.
CHARLESTOWN IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 563
sermon July 14, 1839. During his ministry the present meeting-house
was built. It was dedicated Feb. 10, 1819. Dr. Walker was succeeded
by Mr. George Edward Ellis (H. C. 1833), who was ordained March 11,
1840. His ministry was signalized by the establishment of the Free Ministry
and the building of the Harvard Chapel on Edgeworth Street (1846-56), for
nearly twenty years (1850-69) in charge of the Rev. Oliver Capen Everett
(H. C. 1832). He was professor of Systematic Theology in the Divinity
School at Cambridge, 1857—63. He delivered his farewell discourse June
13, 1869. His ministry and that of his distinguished predecessor covered
more than half a century (18 18-69). 1 The Rev. Charles Edward Grinnell
(H. C. 1862) was installed his successor, Nov. 10, 1869, and he retired from
his charge Dec. 28, 1873. The society was without a settled minister till
Oct. 4, 1876, when its present pastor, the Rev. Pitt Dillingham (D. C. 1873),
was ordained.2
Feb. 15, 1820, the trustees of the Methodist Religious Society in Charles-
town were incorporated. They purchased and occupied the meeting-house
on High Street, which had belonged successively to the Baptists and Uni-
tarians. The Rev. Dr. Wilbur Fisk (B. U. 1815), afterward President of
Wesleyan University, was their first minister. The society, known since
June, 1862, as the Trinity Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, now
worships in a large brick meeting-house on High Street, opposite the head
of Elm Street.3 March I, 1833, the Legislature incorporated the Winthrop
Society in Charlestown. This society, Orthodox in belief, was formed by a
secession from the First Parish. It worshipped for a time in the Town Hall
until a meeting-house could be built for it on the southerly side of Union
Street. In 1849 the present commodious building on Green Street was
completed. The Rev. Daniel Crosby (Y. C. 1823) was the first minister.
The present pastor is the Rev. Alexander Stevenson Twombly (Y. C. 1854).
The other religious societies are: St. John's Church (Episcopal), organized
March 7, 1840, of which the Rev. Dr. Thomas R. Lambert is the present
rector; the Bunker Hill Baptist Church,4 the pulpit of which is now vacant;
the Monument Square Methodist Episcopal Church,5 the Rev. Dr. James O.
1 June 17, 1841, Dr. Ellis delivered here an 8 The Rev. Dr. Henry White Warren (Wes-
oration, in which Prescott's right to be regarded leyan Univ. 1853), now one of the bishops of the
as the commander in the battle of Bunker Hill M. E. Church, was pastor of this society, 1868-
was ably set forth. Forty years later it was his 70. Its present pastor is the Rev. Dr. Horace
privilege to offer for the acceptance of the Bunker W. Bolton.
Hill Monument Association the noble statue of 4 In 1844, 222 persons were dismissed from
Prescott, to be mentioned presently. To Dr. the First Baptist Church to form another soci-
Ellis's active interest the public is chiefly in- ety, now defunct, which worshipped in a small
debted for one of the best pedestrian statues in wooden meeting-house that occupied a part of
America. Cf. Proceedings of the Bunker Hill the site of the present Trinity (Methodist) Soci-
Monitment Association for 1881. ety on High Street. By some of those persons
2 A History of the Harvard Church in Charles- the present Bunker Hill Baptist Church was
town, 1815-1879, octavo, pp 294, by the writer of organized, Jan. 5, 1850, as the Bethesda Baptist
this chapter, was " printed for the society " in Society.
1879. It contains full biographical notices of all 5 This society, formerly known as the Union
the pastors and nearly complete lists of their Church, dates from 1847. Its first settled pastor
several publications. was the Rev. Edward Cook.
564 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Knowles, pastor; St. Mary's Church (Roman Catholic), opened for public
worship in May, 1829, the Very Rev. William Byrne, V.G., pastor; and
the Church of St. Francis de Sales (Roman Catholic), dedicated June 17,
1862, now under the charge of the Rev. Michael J. Supple.1
The burning of the Ursuline Convent on Mount Benedict by a mob
from Boston, on the night of Aug. 11, 1834, is described in other chapters.2
The next day a town-meeting was held to take notice of the outrage, and a
committee, consisting of the Hon. Edward Everett,3 Benjamin Whipple, John
Soley, John Skinner, and the Hon. William Austin4 was chosen to prepare
resolutions expressing the indignation of the citizens at the lawless pro-
ceedings on the previous night. The resolutions were adopted, and a vigi-
lance committee, consisting of General
Austin and nine others, appointed " to
take all such measures as may be neces-
sary to preserve the public peace," and to detect and bring to justice the
perpetrators of the deed. The town directed the selectmen to offer a re-
ward for the detection of the culprits, and voted to request the Governor
of the Commonwealth to offer an additional reward.
Questions of public policy have never been more earnestly or more
warmly debated in any community than in this. In August, 1793, the town
replied to a letter from the Hon. Thomas Russell,5 as chairman of a commit-
tee of the town of Boston, expressing its
sense of the impropriety of fitting out armed
vessels to cruise against the mercantile ma-
rine of other nations at peace with the United
States, and its opinion that such an act constituted a breach of neutrality ;
and, further, that participants in such acts should be regarded as enemies of
the country. In 1795 (July 21), the town having listened to the reading
of Jay's treaty, voted to "disapprove of the treaty now pending between the
United States and Great Britain ; " and " that this town do disapprove of
1 Cf. the several chapters on the different de- sentative and State senator, and a graceful and
nominations in the present volume. vigorous writer. Five of his sons graduated at
2 See those by the Very Rev. William Byrne, Cambridge — in 1825, 1830, 1831, 1839 (H. D. A.),
V.G., which contains a view of the convent, and and 1849; and his daughter Margaret married
by James M. Bugbee, in the present volume. William Prescott Dexter (H. C. 1838), a grand-
3 Mr. Everett lived in Charlestown, 1828-37, son of the Hon. Samuel Dexter (see p. 557 and
chiefly while representing the Middlesex District note). Mr. Austin died here June 27, 1841, aged
in the Congress of the United States. 63. Cf. Allibone, Dictionary of Authors, i. 83;
4 The Hon. William Austin (H.C. 1798) was Duyckinck, Cyclopedia of American Literature,
a younger brother of General Austin (see p. 555, i- 658, 659 ; Willard, Memories of Youth and Man-
note). He wi-- a college classmate of the Rev. hood,\\. 13-15,39. l65= Loring, The Hundred Bos-
Dr. William Ellery Channing and Mr. Justice ton Orators, pp. 328,329; and Wyman, Genealogies
Story ; declined to accept membership in the Phi and Estates of Charleston, p. 33.
Beta Kappa, to which he was elected, because 5 He was a son of the Hon. James Russell
it was then a secret society; studied law about (ante II. 330). Cf. Rev. Dr. Peter Thacher's
two years in London, entering at Lincoln's Inn ; Sermon, April 17, 1796; Dr. John Warren's
and after his return home became a prominent Eulogy, May 4, 1796; and Wyman, Genealogies
member of the Middlesex Bar. He was repre- and Estates of Charlestown, p. 834.
CHARLESTOWN IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 565
the treaty as modified by the Senate of the United States." The selectmen,
as instructed, communicated these votes to the President the next day.
Washington replied August 3I.1
July 20, 1807, resolutions were passed condemning the attack of the
" Leopard " upon the •' Chesapeake," z and approving the then recently
issued proclamation of the President. Aug. 20, 1808, the selectmen re-
ceived a letter from the selectmen of Boston concerning the proceedings of
that town with respect to the embargo,3 and requesting that similar measures
might be adopted by this town ; but the receivers of the letter, being of a
different political complexion from their Boston brethren, deemed it inex-
pedient to convene the town to consider the letter, and sent of themselves a
reply.4 Jan. 29, 1847, a town-meeting, convened in pursuance of a warrant
signed by Jacob Foss, a justice of the peace, — the selectmen refusing
to issue a precept, — appropriated fifteen hundred dollars " to fit out the
company of volunteers raised in " Charlestown " who are about to embark
for the seat of war," — the Mexican. The selectmen (January 23) in refus-
ing the prayer of Mr. Foss and others, expressed the opinion "that the
town would have no authority to make such an appropriation as the peti-
tioners contemplate."
The war for the Union found here the most cordial sympathy and sup-
port. The amount of money appropriated and expended on account of the
war and for aid to soldiers' families, less the amount refunded by the Com-
monwealth, was $176,000. The city furnished for that struggle four thou-
sand three hundred and seven men, a surplus of one hundred and eleven
over all requisitions. One hundred and twenty-three of these were com-
missioned officers. Seven complete organizations, of which the officers
and nearly all the enlisted men resided in Charlestown, constituted her
nominal contribution to the national armies ; but there were numerous
enlistments of Charlestown men in other organizations credited to other
places, besides more numerous enlistments in the navy, of which no suffi-
cient data are at hand.5 The Bunker Hill Soldiers' Relief Society,6 which
was the first of its kind organized in the loyal States, had its inception in
the mind of Miss Almena Brodhead Bates, through whose active interest a
meeting of ladies was held -for consultation at the residence of her father,
the late Paymaster John Adams Bates, U. S. N., on Saturday evening, April
1 Both letters are recorded in the Town Re- Volunteers, 1861-65, published by the Adjutant-
cords, ix. 387, 388. See Mr. Lodge's chapter in General in two vols., quarto; and the Charles-
the present volume. town Advertiser (newspaper), 1861-66. The Sol-
2 Cf. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the War dier's and Sailor's Monument, by Milmore, stands
of 1812, p. 156 et seq. on the Training-field. It was dedicated June 17,
3 Cf. Mr. Lodge's chapter in this volume. 1872. The Grand Army of the Republic is rep-
4 Recorded in Town Records, x. 117-19. resented here by Abraham Lincoln Post No. 11,
5 For the facts in this paragraph I am under and George L. Stearns Post No. 149. Charles-
obligation to Major William H. Hodgkins who town is also well represented in the Military
has kindly placed at my disposal his valuable col- Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States,
lection of statistics concerning Charlestown in 6 The devotion of the late Miss Louisa Bray
the Civil War. Cf. Robinson, History of the to the work of this society throughout its entire
Fifth Regiment, M. V. M. ; Record of the Mass, existence, was remarkable.
566
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
20, 1 86 1. The Hon. Richard Frothingham l presided. A Constitution was
j" agreed upon, which was adopted by
iu,6(. t^/^TT^ie^^ £+**** the largest meeting of ladies ever
S. held in Charlestown, in City Hall,
on the following Monday afternoon, when a board of officers was elected.2
The beneficent work of this society was zealously carried on till the close
of the war by the ladies of Charlestown. Its annual expenditures amounted
to between $4,000 and $5,000, which was raised by the churches, by indi-
vidual contributions, and by entertainments given for its benefit.
In 1823 measures were taken by Mr. Webster, Judge Tudor, Theodore
Lyman, Jr., Colonel Thomas H. Perkins, General Dearborn, and other prom-
inent gentlemen, to form an association for erecting a monument on Bunker
Hill. An act incorporating the Bunker Hill Monument Association was
passed June 7, 1823; and Governor John Brooks was chosen its first presi-
dent, June 17. Plans were soon matured to raise the funds necessary to
buy the site of the battle-field on Breed's Hill (which had been secured by
Dr. John C. Warren) and to build the monument.3 On the fiftieth anniver-
sary of the battle, the corner-stone of the obelisk was laid with masonic
ceremonies in the presence of La Fayette,4 and an oration pronounced by
Mr. Webster, who was also the orator at the completion of the monument
in i843.6 In 1857 a marble statue, by Dexter, of General Joseph Warren
was placed upon the grounds ; and the present year has witnessed the un-
veiling of Story's admirable statue, in bronze, of Colonel William Prescott.6
J Mr. Frothingham was born here Jan. 31, 2 Cf. Schouler, Massachusetts in the Civil War,
1812, and died here Jan. 29, 1880. He was a ii. 393-99, for a full account of this society and
trustee of the schools as early as 1839; was rep- its officers,
resentative in 1840 and subsequent years; and
mayor 1851-53. He was a polit-
ical writer, as well as the author
of several historical works,
which are authorities upon the
subjects they treat. His History
of Charlestffiim, from 1629 to
1775, appeared in seven numbers (1845-49).
Harvard College conferred on him the degree of
A.M. in 1858, and Tufts that of LL.I). in 1874.
Mr. Thomas Bellows Wyman was born in
3 The obelisk is about two hundred and
twenty feet high. The architect was Solomon
Willard. In 1824 the town declined the over-
Charlestown Dec. u, 1817, and died here May tures of the Association for the cession to it of
the Training-field, on condition that
a more spacious park should be laid
out on Breed's Hill.
4 General La Fayette was re-
ceived here the preceding year
(Aug. 27, 1824) by a large commit-
tee of the town, which had spc-
19, 1878. He was cousin to Mr. Frothingham, ciall.y invited him to be its guest. Cf. Town
but, unlike him, he never held any public office. Records, xi. 213, 214; and Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc.
His quiet and retired life was chiefly devoted to xiv. 65-67.
the preparation of his unique and unrivalled 6 Cf. Frothingham, History of the Siege of
work, The Genealogies and Estates of Charleston, Boston, pp. 337~59; ancl Warren, History of the
which entitles him to a respectful and grateful Bunker Hill Monument Association.
/
recognition in these volumes.
6 See Mr. Arthur Dexter's chapter in Vol. IV.
CHARLESTOWN IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS.
567
In 1804 a statement of the town's expenses was ordered to be printed
annually and distributed among the citizens. In 1804-5 tne State Prison
was built at Lynde's Point.1 The original building, to which others subse-
quently were added at different times, was of granite, two hundred feet long
by forty feet wide, and four stories high. The buildings are no longer used
as a penitentiary, the institution having been recently removed to Concord.2
In 1805-1807 the new burial-ground on Bunker Hill Street3 was laid out.
In 1812 a Branch of the Washington Benevolent Society was established
here. In 1813 the Washington Hall Association was incorporated. In
August, 1815, it was voted to light lamps in certain streets, not named,
at " the dark of the moon in October next." July 5, 1817, President Mon-
roe was received by a large committee of prominent citizens of which the
Hon. Josiah Bartlett was chairman.4 Oct. 6, 1818, the McLean Asylum for
the Insane5 was opened. June
18, 1825, the Bunker Hill Bank
was chartered ; and Feb. 2 1 ,
1829, the Warren Institution for
Savings was incorporated. In
November, 1829, the town dismissed the petition of John H. Shaffer for the
erection of a theatre ; and the following month the use of the Town Hall
was granted to the Charlestown Lyceum, which was opened with an address
by Major Walker, Jan. 5, 1830. Lyceum Hall was incorporated March 4,
i83i.6
In 1802 the town was surveyed for the fourth time.7 The same year
Nathaniel Prentiss and others were set off from this town to Cambridge.8
In 1824 the project of constituting as a separate town all that part of Charles-
town which lay " without the Neck " was first seriously considered in town-
1 Cf. ante I. 387.
2 An excellent view (18 X io£ inches) of the
prison and workshops in 1829, drawn in India-
ink and colors by a convict, is in possession of
the writer of this chapter. There is a brief ac-
count of the prison, and a view of it from the
water side, in Barber's /f/r/. Coll. of ^/^jj., pp.
367, 368. Cf. An account of the Massachusetts
State Prison, Charlestown, 1806; G. Bradford,
Description and Historical Sketch, 1816; G.
Haynes, Historical Sketch, 1869; and Bartlett,
Historical Sketch of Charlestmvn, p. 175.
3 A Roman Catholic burial-ground, on the
summit of Bunker Hill, contiguous to St. Francis
de Sales' Church, was consecrated later.
4 Dr. Bartlett's address of welcome, and
the President's reply, are in the Town Records
(xi. 53, 54). President Jackson visited Charles-
town, by invitation, June 26, 1833. He was wel-
comed on Breed's Hill by Mr. Everett, who
presented him with a mahogany box, suitably
inscribed, containing a six-pound ball from the
battle-field of New Orleans and a grape-shot from
the field of Bunker Hill. Mr. Everett's address
and the President's reply are in the Town Records
(xii. 250-55). July 22, 1845, resolutions on the
death of General Jackson were adopted. Cf.
Town Records, xiv. 262, 263.
5 Cf. ante. I. 391. There is a view and some
account of the asylum in Barber's Hist. Coll. of
Mass., pp. 366, 367. Views engraved on steel
may be found as frontispieces to Frothingham's
History of C/iarlestown and Bowditch's History
of the Mass. General Hospital, which see.
6 This year (1831) the first Charlestown Di-
rectory appeared. Others followed in 1834,
1836, 1838, 1840, 1842, 1845, l848' l852' and then
every two years till 1874, when the last of the
series of twenty was issued. A complete set is
in the Charlestown Branch of the Public Library.
7 This survey is printed in the Third Report
of the Boston Record Commissioners, pp. 247-62.
Ct.ante, 1.393; n- 324-
8 Cf. ante. II. 324.
568
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
TUFTS'S PLAN OF CHARLESTOWN, iSlS.1
meeting.2 The committee then appointed to confer with the persons desiring
the separation, and to mature an acceptable plan, failed to accomplish its
mission. In 1842, however, the town voted (Jan. 26) to accede to the
petition of Guy C. Hawkins and others to be set off as the town, now city, of
Somerville ; and appointed a committee to confer with the legislative com-
mittee engaged in drafting the bill authorizing the separation concerning the
1 Copies of this plan, taken from -the original 2 A petition for such a separation, signed by
copperplate, were inserted in Volume II. of Samuel Tufts and others, was then pending in
Wyman's Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown. the General Court.
CHARLESTOWN IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 569
lines of demarcation to be determined and the conditions attending the dis-
ruption. The act incorporating the new town was passed March 3. April
22, following, Charlestown was newly divided into six wards.1
Jan. 5, 1846, the town considered a petition of the Hon. Henry P.
Fairbanks and others, that application be made to the General Court for
a city charter. Nov. 9, 1846, the selectmen were authorized, by a vote
of 798 to 774, to petition for a charter. One was granted Feb. 22, 1847,
and accepted by the town March 10, — the vote standing 1127 in favor of
the Act, and 868 against it. March 20 the selectmen divided the town into
three wards, as provided in the charter. April 19, upon a second trial,2 Mr.
George W. Warren (H. C. 1830) was elected mayor.3 The first board of
aldermen consisted of Ebenezer Barker, Dexter Bowman, John Cheever,
Thomas Hooper, Phinehas J. Stone, and Paul Willard (H. C. 1817).
The Public Library had its inception in the offer of the Hon. Timothy
T. Sawyer, the Hon. Edward Lawrence, Mr. Edwin F. Adams, and Mr.
Nathan A. Tufts, to give $500 each towards founding such an institution.
It was established by a city ordinance, passed June 5, 1860. The library
was opened Jan. 7, 1862, and was administered by trustees,4 chosen an-
nually, until it became a branch of the Boston Public Library, in 1874.
It now contains more than twenty-two thousand volumes. Cornelius Sowle
Cartee (B. U. 1825) has been the librarian since i87O.6
The Mystic Water Works were constructed under a legislative act,
passed in March, 1861, which was accepted by the people Sept. 10, by a
vote of 944 to 251. Dec. 10, 1861, Messrs. Edward Lawrence, Matthew
Rice, and George H. Jacobs were appointed commissioners to build the
works. They organized by choosing Mr. Lawrence chairman, Jan. 8, 1862.
April 5, Mr. Charles L. Stevenson was appointed chief engineer, and Mr.
George R. Baldwin,6 consulting engineer. September 27, work was begun
on the reservoir on Walnut Hill,7 Somerville. The water was formally in-
troduced into the city with imposing ceremonies, Nov. 29, 1864. The ex-
penditures of the commissioners, who made their final report Feb. 28, 1865,
amounted to $731,515.83. The Mystic Water Board was created the same
year (1865), and continued to manage the water department until it was
1 In 1841 the valuation of what is now 4 The Hon. Timothy T. Sawyer was presi-
Somerville amounted to $ 579,440, and of what dent of the board of trustees during the entire
remained after Somerville was set off, $4,008,680. separate existence of the institution, to which
Cf. Town Records, xiii. 366-69, 446-50; xiv. 35- his loyal and arduous service was conspicuous.
37,164-68. In 1847 the valuation was $8,415,145. 5 The covenant between the city and the
'z A majority of the votes cast was then ne- original subscribers was recognized in sect. 12
cessary to a choice. of the Annexation Act of 1873, which provides
8 Mr. Warren's successors in the mayoralty that all books and documents then belonging to
were: Richard Frothingham, Jr., 1851-53; James the library, or thereafter given or bequeathed to
Adams, 1854; Timothy T. Sawyer, 1855-57; it, " shall be continued and kept within the pres-
James Dana (H. C. 1830), 1858-60; Horace G. ent limits of Charlestown." Its funds and future
Hutchins (D. C. 1835), '861 ; Phinehas J. Stone, bequests to it were similarly secured.
1862-64; Charles Robinson, Jr., 1865-66; Liv- ° He was half brother to the Hon. Loammi
erus Hull, 1867-68; Eugene L. Norton, 1869; Baldwin (H. C. 1800). Seep. 557, note.
William H. Kent, 1870-72; and Jonathan Stone, " Formerly called Walnut Tree Hill. Cf.
1873. ante, I. 391.
VOL. III. — 72.
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
merged with the Cochituate Water Works in the Boston Water Board. The
Hon. Edward Lawrence was chairman of the commissioners and of the
water board from Jan. 8, 1862, till July 15, 1873, when he resigned. The
ability with which he administered this important trust, for which he
received no pecuniary compensation, was fitly recognized by the city
council upon his retirement.1 The total cost of the works to January,
1873, was $1,460,000. They yield a handsome revenue.2
The Winchester Home for Aged Women was founded by Mrs. Nancy
(Phipps) Winchester,3 who died here June 24, 1864, bequeathing an estate
worth about $10,000 to establish " a home for aged and indigent females."
The corporation was organized Oct. 3, 1865. The managers4 are chosen by
the different Protestant religious societies in Charlestown.
The annexation of Charlestown to Boston was brought before this town,
on petition of Oliver Holden5 and others, as early as Nov. 14, 1836, when
the matter was " indefinitely postponed." 6 At a
town-meeting held Jan. 28, 1845, a preamble and
resolutions opposing the scheme, which had been
revived, were presented by Mr. Richard Frothing-
ham, Jr., and adopted. April 29, 1854, an act to unite the two cities was
passed by the Legislature and accepted by the people ; but it was set aside
on account of a flaw in its provisions.7 The measure was again agitated in
1860 and in 1870. On the fourteenth of May, i873,8 another act was
passed. It was accepted by both cities on the first Tuesday in October ;
and on the first Monday in January, 1874, Charlestown cast in her lot with
that of her first-born.
1 Cf. Records of the Board of Mayor and
Aldermen, x. 36, 37.
2 Cf. Report on supplying the city of Charles-
town with pure water, Dec. 26, 1859, by G. R.
Baldwin and C. L. Stevenson, Boston, 1860 ;
and Report of the commissioners and chief engi-
neer of the Charlestown Water Works, Feb. 28,
1865. Boston: 1865.
8 Cf. Wyman, Genealogies and Estates of
Cliarlestown, p. 754.
* At the present time (1881) the Hon. Liverus
Hull is President of the corporation, the Hon.
Timothy Thompson Sawyer and the Hon. Fran-
cis Childs, are Vice-Presidents, Mr. John Turner
is Treasurer, and Mr. Abram Edmands Cutter,
Secretary.
8 Mr. Holden was the composer of the tune
" Coronation," in 1793. Cf. Wyman, Genealogies
and Estates of Charlestown, p. 509.
6 An earlier movement in the same direction
occurred in 1829. Two informal meetings of the
citizens were held in the Town Hall, March 20
and April 3 of that year. At the last meeting a
report favoring the measure was presented. Only
two speeches were made, — one by Mr. Joseph
Tufts (H. C. 1807), the other by Mr. Arthur \V.
Austin (H. C. 1825), then a young attorney-at-
law, who vigorously attacked the scheme, and
succeeded in defeating it by a majority of ten to
one. Cf. Bunker Hill Aurora (newspaper) for
March 21 and April 4, 1829.
~ The decision of the Supreme Judicial Court
is reported in 2 Gray, 84.
8 In 1873 tne valuation was $35,289,682;
and the public property was reckoned worth
$3,035,100, including the water works which are
set down at $2,000,000. The annual appropria-
tions for the year 1873-74 amounted to $497,275.
Jan. 12, 1874, the funded debt amounted to
$2,623,287.50.
CHAPTER XVI.
ROXBURY IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS.
BY FRANCIS S. DRAKE.
A T the close of the Revolutionary war, and for nearly half a century
•*• ^- afterward, Roxbury was still a suburban village, with a single nar-
row street, and dotted with farms, many of which were yet held by the
descendants of original proprietors. Not a few of the old homesteads
were still in existence, and the manners, habits, and pursuits of the prim-
itive inhabitants had not wholly given place to newer fashions and more
varied occupations. The business of the town was concentrated in Rox-
bury Street, the sole thoroughfare to Boston, through which, as through a
tunnel, crowded all the surplus produce of the country. Hides and skins,
the chief articles of its trade aside from its farm products, also supplied
the staple for its manufactures of leather, shoes, and gloves. Traces of
the siege were evident in the remains of forts and earthworks lining its
eastern border, in the shot-riddled houses in their vicinity, and also in the
absence of the shade and forest trees that had formerly adorned it. From
the old Burying-ground to the site of the British lines l not a house was
left standing.
The town at this period contained two hundred and thirteen dwelling-
houses, eighteen tanneries and slaughter-houses, one chocolate mill, two
grist mills (Pierpont's and Ralph Smith's), three meeting-houses, one
grammar school, and four other schools. Its population was probably
under two thousand. The eastern, central, and western portions, respec-
tively known as the First Parish, Jamaica Plain, and Spring Street, consti-
tuted prior to 1820, when parochial divisions had all disappeared, the First,
Second, and Third parishes. Punch-Bowl village was at Muddy River, now
Brookline ; Roxbury Precinct included the westerly side of Parker Hill and
vicinity ; and Pierpont's Village clustered around the mill whose site is now
the Roxbury Station of the Boston and Providence Railroad.
Jamaica Plain, originally called the " Pond Plain," had, as early as 1667,
received its present name, probably in compliment to Cromwell, and in
commemoration of his recent valuable conquest from Spain of the island
1 Canton Street
572
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
of Jamaica. This charming and healthful region has always been a favorite
summer resort for Bostonians. Here were the country seats of Governors
Bernard, Hancock, and Bowdoin, of Sir William Pepperrell the younger,
Commodore Loring, Captain Hallowell, and many other distinguished
citizens of colonial days, as well as those of a later period.
The localities embraced in the western portion of the town were Spring
Street, so named for its springy character ; Muddy Pond, with its aboriginal
woods, bordering upon Dedham ; Muddy-Pond Hill, lately re-christened
" Mount Bellevue ; " Canterbury, that quiet and obscure portion of the
town adjoining Dorchester, whose name is a puzzle to the antiquary, and
in which are now included the beautiful cemeteries of Forest Hills and
Mount Hope ; Brook Farm, the scene of the most famous of American
Socialist experiments, lying in the southwest corner of the town ; and the
Bussey Farm, originally the Weld Farm, upon which stands the Bussey
Institution, the Agricultural School of Harvard University. Roslindale
and Clarendon Hills, centrally situated, are communities of recent origin
and rapid growth.
Slight alterations were made in the Boston boundary-line by the legis-
lative acts of 1836, 1838, and 1859. In 1857 a decision of the Supreme
Court of Massachusetts, regarded by the people of Roxbury as a -flagrant
piece of injustice, deprived her of seventy-one acres of Back-bay land
which had belonged to her from time immemorial, and declared it to be
the property of the State. Much of this territory, formerly covered with
water, has been reclaimed, and now constitutes the finest portion of the
city. The Back-bay Park, with the exception of a small portion belonging
to Brookline, is included in the Roxbury tract. In 1838 eighteen hundred
acres of Newton, bounding upon Charles River, were set off to Roxbury.
That part of the town lying between Muddy River and the Brook, its
original boundary, was annexed to Brookline in 1844. In 1852 a portion
of Dedham was annexed to the town of West Roxbury. The filling of
Roxbury Canal, the extension of Swett Street and of East-Chester Park
have slightly enlarged the area of the town on its eastern side.
Shays's Insurrection broke out in the fall of 1786. Roxbury, true to her
military traditions, performed her part in its suppression, sending to the scene
of operations Captain Spooner's artillery company, and an infantry company
under Captain Moses Draper. The former, before marching, were addressed
at the Old Meeting-house by Mr. Samuel Quincy. November 30, Roxbury
sent a party of mounted volunteers on a secret expedition for the capture
of some of the leading insurgents; but they returned without effecting
their object. For the protection of the Court to be held at Cambridge a
company of veterans belonging to the First Parish was organized under
the command of Major-General Heath, with Captain Joseph Williams and
Hon. John Read as lieutenants.
At the public celebration in Boston, Feb. 8, 1788, of the ratification of
the Constitution of the United States, at which all the industrial arts were
ROXBURY IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 573
represented, the farmers of Roxbury, with a plough and other implements
of husbandry, led the procession.
President Washington, dressed in his old Continental uniform, and at-
tended by his secretaries Colonel Lear and Major Jackson, made his last
entry into Boston from the Roxbury line, Oct. 24, 1789, to revisit the scene
of his first memorable achievement. He was saluted with a discharge of
cannon from the Roxbury Artillery, under Captain Jonathan Warner,
Colonel Tyler's troop of horse escorting him to the entrance of the town.
His detention here of two hours, exposed to a raw northeast wind, gave
him a severe cold. From the same cause a general distemper became
prevalent, called the " Washington Influenza." 1
A canal fifty feet in width, extending from the wharf at Lamb's-Dam
Creek nearly to Eustis Street, just east of the Burying-ground, was built
in 1795, the line between Boston and Roxbury passing through its centre.
Its enterprising projectors — among whom were Ralph Smith, Dr. Thomas
Williams, and Aaron and Charles Davis — proposed by this means to save
two and a half miles of land carriage from the centre of Boston. General
Heath's manuscript journal, under date of March 9, 1796, notes the fact
that a large topsail schooner that day came up into the basin of the new
canal, in " Lamb's Meadow." This canal, never a paying investment, long
ago ceased to be of commercial importance, and has been recently filled
up by the city.
In 1795 the Jamaica- Pond Aqueduct Company was incorporated. About
forty-five miles of pipes, made of logs, were laid, the average daily supply of
water being about four hundred thousand gallons ; and, until the introduction
of Cochituate water, it supplied some portions of the old city. The right to
draw water from the pond, granted to certain citizens conditionally in 1698,
was a frequent 'cause of litigation till 1851, when the Boston Water Board
bought the right for $45,000. In 1856 the city sold it for $32,000 to the
present corporation, on condition that they should not bring water into the
city proper.
Colonel Joseph Dudley, in 1810, gave a portion of his patrimonial
estate as a site for a town house. A two-story brick building was erected,
and was so far completed in February, 1811, that a town-meeting was then
held there. The use of the upper story was granted, in 1818, to the Norfolk
Guards for an armory. A grammar-school was subsequently kept there.
After 1846 it was known as the City Hall. Latterly used as a court-house,
with cells for prisoners in its basement, it was demolished in 1873, to make
room for the new Dudley-School building, when the heirs of Dudley were
recompensed for the departure from the original conditions of the gift.
Prominent among the town officers of Roxbury for fidelity and length of
service were Deacon Samuel Gridley, Dr. N. S. Prentiss, Joseph W. Tucker,
Colonel Joseph Williams, Noah Perrin, Ebenezer Seaver, and Joseph W.
Dudley.
1 [See Mr. Lodge's chapter in the present volume. — ED.]
574
'l'HE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
In September, 1814, while the second war with England was in progress,
the town voted unanimously to do, by manual labor, pecuniary contribu-
tion, and military service, whatever the Executive of the Commonwealth
should require to put the State in a proper posture of defence " in the
present alarming condition of the country; " and placed upon its war com-
mittee the veteran General Henry Dearborn. Political sentiment in New
England was violently hostile to the war, and John Lowell, Jr.'s pamphlet
on " Madison's War," a powerful attack on the party in power, so exas-
1 [This portrait of Gen. Dearborn, painted p. 170. The Dearborn house, in Roxbury, is
by Stuart in 1812, is now owned by Mr. H. G. R. shown in Lossing's Field-book of the War of 1812,
Dearborn, his grandson. See Mason's Shwrt, p. 250, and in Drake's Roxbnry, p. 327. — ED.]
ROXBURY IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS.
575
perated some of its supporters, that they threatened to burn Mr. Lowell's
house in Roxbury. No attempt was made, however, to put the threat into
execution.
The Boston and Roxbury Mill Corporation was chartered June 4, 1814,
and in 1818 work was begun on the Mill-dam, or Western Avenue, the first
of the artificial roads connecting the peninsula of Boston with the main
land. For the construction of this road, one and a half miles in length,
Irish laborers were for the first time expressly imported into this country.
The stone used was from the Parker-Hill quarry. It was opened July 2,
1821, with a public parade, the addition of another avenue to Boston being
considered a great event. So far as obtaining water-power was concerned
the project was a failure ; but the conversion of the submerged territory
into dry land by the Boston Water-Power Company has resulted in the
rapid growth of the city in that direction.
In August, 1824, on the occasion of the visit of General Lafayette to the
United States as the guest of the nation, he was entertained by Governor
Eustis, his old compatriot in the army, at his residence in Roxbury, — the
Governor Shirley mansion.1 The General was received by a cavalcade of
citizens, the bells were rung, while salvos of artillery and a discharge of
rockets evinced the general enthusiasm and the heartiness of his welcome.
A grand entertainment was given him by the Governor, at which were pres-
ent ex-Governor Brooks and General Dearborn, both of whom had served
with distinction in the Revolutionary army. After making a tour through
the States, Lafayette returned to Roxbury, where he passed the night of
June 1 6, 1825, and the next morning was escorted to Bunker Hill, where
he assisted in laying the corner-stone of the monument.
The two hundredth anniversary of the settlement of Roxbury was cele-
brated Oct. 8, 1830, with great parade. Upon the square near the Norfolk
House a procession was formed, which, under escort of the Norfolk Guards,
marched through the principal streets. An historical address was delivered
by General H. A. S Dearborn, and a centennial poem by Dr. Thomas Gray.
In the evening the town was illuminated by bonfires and by fireworks from
1 [This is shown in the frontispiece of Vol. gust, 1867; and when Shirley Street was laid out
II. This mansion passed in 1764 into the the house was moved a little to the southeast,
hands of Judge Eliakim Hutchinson, Shirley's (Drake, Town of Roxbury.) In November, 1865,
son-in-law ; and as the judge was a loyalist, it an auction sale of many relics preserved in the
was occupied by troops during the siege, and
became in 1782 the property of the Hon. John
Read, who sold it in 1791 to a French Refugee,
Mine, de Fitzpatrick. Later, it was owned by
Giles Alexander, and at one time was occupied old mansion took place, — such as a secretary
by M. Dubuque, from Martinique, who had a given by General Warren to Governor Eustis;
cook named Julien, who afterward became fa- the furniture of the chamber occupied by Lafay-
mous in Boston as a caterer. Captain James ette ; a portrait on ivory of the Duchess of Or-
Magee, a shipmaster in Colonel Thomas H. Per- leans, given by herself to the governor ; and the
kins's employ, next owned it, and his widow sold old family coach, which was built by Knowles
it to Governor Eustis in August, 1819; and after and Thayer, of Amherst, in 1822 (sold for §30),
the death of the governor's widow, who had and which has since been conspicuous in more
kept the house unchanged, it was sold in Au- than one procession in Boston. — ED.]
576 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
the Old Fort.1 Another celebration, under the auspices of the Roxbury
City Guard, took place November 22 of the centennial year 1876, at which
General Horace B. Sargent was the orator.
The decade from 1820 to 1830 marks distinctly the epoch of transition
from the old to the new town. Prior to this the only public improvement of
magnitude besides the Roxbury Canal had been the construction, in 1805,
of the Dedham Turnpike. The Mill-dam, as already noted, and two new
churches, had been built in 1821. In 1824 Roxbury Street was paved and
brick sidewalks laid. Before this the street was paved in the middle only,
the sidewalk of cobble-stones having a narrow brick-walk in its centre. In
1825 all the existing roads, to the number of forty, received names from the
town authorities. Albany Street, originally the " way to the town landing,"
or wharf, was widened, and named Davis Street. The Norfolk House was
opened, and a newspaper started. The streets were first lighted in May,
1826, lamps being provided by the inhabitants. In this year hourly coaches
began to run from the Town House to the Old South Church, in Boston;
more frequent and rapid conveyance is now furnished by two steam and two
horse railroads. The first of these, the Boston & Providence, was built in
1834. In 1829 a Board of Health was created.
In this and the following decade the march of improvement was further
manifested by the speculative purchase of a number of the old estates near
the business part of the town. Among the more important of these
were the estates of Dr. Thomas Williams, between Albany and Magazine
streets ; the White Farm, in the locality since known as Mount Pleasant ;
the Weld and John Read estates, adjoining White's ; the Dudley estate,
lying between Bartlett and Roxbury streets; the Maccarty Farm, between
Hawthorne Street and Walnut Avenue, and extending from Cedar Street
on the north to Marcella Street on the south ; the Ruggles and Joseph
Williams estates, embracing the territory through which Highland and
Cedar streets run ; and the Lowell and Heath estates, on the north side of
Centre Street, between it and Parker Hill. Through these large tracts
streets were laid out and graded, new buildings very soon sprang up on
every side, and the population and business of the town rapidly increased.
Tremont Street was opened to Roxbury from its Boston terminus, near
Chickering's piano-forte factory, Sept. 10, 1832, — a great relief to Wash-
ington Street, which up to that period had been over-crowded with country
teams. So much opposition was manifested to this enterprise by those
doing business on the " Neck," then the only free thoroughfare connecting
Boston with the country, — toll being taken on the Mill-dam, — that it could
only be completed through private subscriptions. These were procured
through the energetic efforts of Watson Gore and Guy Carleton, aided by
John Parker and a few other wealthy men.
After more than two centuries of town government, which it had at
length fairly outgrown, the town of Roxbury became a city, by legislative
1 Where now the Cochituate stand-pipe is.
ROXBURY IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS.
577
enactment, March 12, 1846. The act was accepted by the inhabitants on the
twenty-fifth of the same month, eight hundred and thirty-six voting yea,
while only one hundred and ninety-two voted in the negative. The old
board of selectmen was replaced by a mayor, eight aldermen, and twenty-
four councilmen. The territory of the town was divided into eight wards.
When West Roxbury was set off, in 1851, it took parts of wards four and
five, and all of wards six, seven, and eight, with the exception of Brook
Farm, recently bought by the city for a poor-farm, and Forest Hills Ceme-
MEETING-HOUSE HILL IN 1 79O.1
tery, both within the territorial limits of the new town. One important re-
sult of the change was the immediate adoption of numerous much-needed
public improvements, such as the general laying of sidewalks and drains, the
construction of sewers, and the providing of public parks. One of the most
memorable of the achievements of the new city government was the estab-
lishment of Forest Hills Cemetery. Gas was first introduced in 1850, and
a horse-railroad was put in operation in 1856, running at first from Guild
Row only to Boylston Street. Among the many street improvements was
the widening of Washington Street, in 1855. In the twenty-two years
of the city government the population grew from thirteen thousand to
thirty thousand, its largest increase being in the decade from 1840 to
1 [This follows a painting by Penniman, old First Church. The Mears house, the Lam-
owned by Mr. Horace Hunt. It is taken from bert house, and the old parsonage are yet stand-
Deacon Moses Davis's house, and shows the ing. Drake, Town of Roxbury, p. 287. — ED.]
VOL. III. — 73.
578 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
1850; its business steadily expanded, and it became in all save the name
a part of the adjoining metropolis. The following citizens successively
occupied the mayor's chair: John Jones Clarke (1846), H. A. S. Dearborn
(1847-51), Samuel Walker (1851-53), Linus Bacon Comins (1854), James
Ritchie (1855), John Sherburne Sleeper (1856-58), Theodore Otis (1859-
60), William Gaston (1861-62), George Lewis (1863-67).
The idea of dividing the town, which grew out naturally from its great
extent, and from the fact that all its business, religious and secular, had to
be transacted at its eastern extremity, first found expression in 1706, when
petitioners to the General Court from that quarter of the town prayed that
the western part might form a separate precinct. It accordingly became
the second parish in 1711. An unsuccessful attempt was made in 1777 to
incorporate the second and third parishes into a district to be called WTash-
ington. The western part of the town, being wholly agricultural, strongly
objected to the expenditure of sums raised by general taxation upon im-
provements made almost wholly in the eastern or business part of the town.
Efforts for separation were consequently renewed in 1817, again in 1838,
1843, and 1844, and finally in 1850, when they were successful, notwithstand-
ing the opposition of the Roxbury city government, — the act setting off and
incorporating West Roxbury taking effect May 24, 1851. This event, so
interesting to its people, was celebrated with great rejoicings on the even-
ing of June 3, 1851. The dividing line was Seaver Street, from Blue-Hill
Avenue to Washington Street, thence, running in the same direction, to
Brookline, crossing Centre Street at its junction with Day and Perkins
streets. By this division Roxbury lost four-fifths of her territory, which was
reduced to two thousand one hundred acres. Her population remained
at fifteen thousand, the same as when she became a city. In 1868 West
Roxbury built an elegant town house (Curtis Hall) on a portion of the
Greenough estate.
Roxbury performed her whole duty in the war of the Rebellion, placing
her entire quota promptly in the field. Spirited public meetings were held,
stirring and patriotic addresses made, and there was no lack of effort to raise
the men and material required of her for the preservation of the Union. At a
meeting in West Roxbury in 1862, upon a proposition to lay out a new road,
it was resolved that " the only road desirable to be laid out at the present
time is the road to Richmond ; " and the town gave $86,000 for war purpo-
ses, to which private subscriptions added $22,000. It is believed that Rox-
bury contributed more liberally to the support of the families of her soldiers
than any other town in the State. The women were especially active in
promoting the success of the Union cause. In December, 1861, they formed
a society auxiliary to the United States Sanitary Commission ; Mrs. Henry
Bartlett was its president, and weekly meetings were held for nearly four
years ; they raised $7,860, and forwarded twelve thousand one hundred and
eighty-three garments, besides linen, fruits, and hospital stores.
The city furnished three thousand two hundred and seventy-one men for
ROXBURY IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 579
the service, one hundred and thirty-six of whom were commissioned officers,
— a surplus of four hundred and forty. In consequence of her policy of
raising her men in anticipation of the calls of the general government, she
was subjected to but a single draft, and that a very slight one, in 1863.
Valuable aid was rendered in procuring enlistments by the " Reserve
Guard," Captain Edward \Vyman. There was disbursed for war expenses
$545,367.34, besides the sum of $21,818 in private subscriptions to aid in
recruiting. The camp of the Second regiment, Colonel Gordon, was estab-
lished at Brook Farm, May 1 1, 1861, and named Camp Andrew.
The Roxbury City Guard furnished three companies to the service, —
Company D, First regiment, Captain Ebenezer W. Stone, Jr., for three years ;
and Company D, Forty-second regiment, Captain George Sherive, for nine
months. This company made a part of Colonel Burrill's regiment, a por-
tion of which was captured at Galveston, Texas, Jan. I, 1863. Returning
at the expiration of its term of service, it re-enlisted for one hundred days.
Its officers remained prisoners until exchanged, July 22, 1864. Other Rox-
bury organizations for three years were —
Company E, Thirteenth regiment, Captain Joseph Colburn (promoted to lieut.-
colonel).
Company E, Twenty-second regiment, Captain W. L. Cogswell.
Company K, Thirty-fifth regiment, Captain William S. King (promoted to colonel).
Company B, Thirty-ninth regiment, Captain William W. Graham (promoted to
major).
Fifty-sixth regiment, Captain G. G. Redding (no distinct company organization).
Fifty-ninth regiment, Captain Lewis F. Munroe (killed Oct. 12, 1864).
Fifty-ninth regiment, Captain Warren S. Potter (no distinct company organization).
Of her officers, Colonels Isaac S. Burrill and W. Raymond Lee were cap-
tured at the outset of their periods of service, — the latter at Ball's Bluff.
General Nelson A. Miles, well known for his distinguished services in the
civil war, and in recent Indian campaigns, went from Roxbury as first lieu-
tenant of company E, Twenty-second regiment. Among her brave sons
whose lives were freely given to their country were General T. J. C. Amory,
Colonel Lucius M. Sargent, and Major E. G. Park. Tasteful monuments to
the memory of her fallen heroes have been erected at Forest Hills, and in
front of the Unitarian church at Jamaica Plain.
The project of annexing Roxbury to Boston, broached in the year 1851,
was for a long time strenuously opposed. Voted down in 1853 (two hun-
dred and sixty-two yeas; nays, three hundred and ninety-nine), it was
carried by the people in 1857 (eight hundred and eight to seven hundred
and sixty- two) ; but in view of the small majority the city authorities de-
clined to act upon it. In 1859 the legislature gave the petitioners leave to
withdraw. In 1864 the proposition was rejected in the senate. At length
the arguments of those who foresaw the necessity for a common system of
streets, sewers, water-supply, and drainage for the two cities, already so
580 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
closely united commercially and geographically, prevailed. Early in 1867
a committee of the legislature unanimously reported that " the benefits to
Roxbury, the necessities of Boston, and the interests of the Commonwealth,
sanction and require annexation." The commissioners of both cities had
previously reported in favor of the measure. It was accordingly adopted
by the voters of the two cities on the second Monday of September, and
annexation took effect Jan. 6, 1868. The vote of Roxbury was one thou-
sand eight hundred and thirty-two to five hundred and ninety-two, — more
than three to one in its favor. The majority of votes for it in Boston was
also large. West Roxbury followed the example of her elder sister six
years later (Jan. 5, 1874). By the annexation of these two districts Boston
acquired a territory three times the size of her own, — a much needed acces-
sion ; increased her valuation $26,551,700, and added forty thousand to her
population. The especial benefit to Roxbury was the introduction of Co-
chituate water ; a remarkable rise in the value of her real estate soon fol-
lowed, and a fresh impetus was given to her growth and prosperity. Her
history as a separate organization terminates at this point, after an existence
of two hundred and thirty-eight years.
The past sixty years have witnessed a striking change in the religious
life of Roxbury. The severity of the Puritan Sunday, which prevailed up
to the close of the last century, had at the beginning of this period been
materially relaxed, and fines for non-attendance at church were no longer
exacted. The three churches which then sufficed for its religious wants
have grown in number to forty-two ; and the single denomination then in ex-
istence has seen springing up within and around it societies representing
nearly all shades of religious belief, with full liberty for their exercise. In-
stead of the large number of clergymen in Roxbury at the present time,
many of whom are little known, the three Roxbury ministers, Porter, Gray,
and Bradford, for near half a century had wielded the spiritual destinies of
the people, by whom they were universally known and greatly beloved.
The old First Church, in Eliot Square, like so many others of the original
churches of New England, is now Unitarian in its faith, the change taking
place early in this century. Its present edifice, the fifth erected here, dates
from 1804. In 1857 the building was repaired, and its interior greatly im-
proved. At that time four of its pew-holders of 1804 were yet living, as
also were twenty-five of the descendants of the original founders of 1632.
It is noteworthy that the term of service of four of its ten pastors, — Eliot,
Nehemiah Walter, Porter, and Putnam, — extends over a space of two
hundred and nineteen years. With the exception of Welde, who went
back to England, and the present pastor, all have begun and ended here
their ministerial career, spending their lives in the service of this church.
The Rev. Eliphalet Porter, D.D., pastor for more than half a century, was a
sound, instructive, and practical, rather than a popular preacher, generally
saying the right thing in the right manner, at the right time. His succes-
ROXBURY IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 581
sor, the Rev. George Putnam, D.D., pastor for a nearly equal period, was a
most thoughtful, interesting, and eloquent preacher. He represented Rox-
bury in the State Legislature and in the Constitutional Convention, and
rendered efficient service to her schools.1
Next in age to the First Church is that of the Second Parish, also Unitarian,
in West Roxbury. Its house of worship, on Centre Street near South, origi-
nally a plain, square structure, without a steeple, stood with its side to the
road. Given its present form and largely rebuilt in 1821, it was again enlarged
and repaired a few years ago. Theodore Parker, who preached here nearly
nine years, speaks of his parishioners as " good, quiet, sober, church-going
people, and capital listeners." For the first year or two, as he informs us
in his volume of Ministerial Experiences, his congregation did not exceed
seventy persons, including the children ; yet he took great pains in the com-
position of his sermons, which were never out of his mind.
After Rev. Dr. Gordon's return to England, in 1786, the pastorate of the
Third Parish Church, at Jamaica Plain, was vacant seven years, and until the
settlement of the Rev. Thomas Gray. From a small and poor society Mr.
Gray brought it to a highly prosperous condition. Though practical, agree-
able, and often effective as a preacher, it was as a pastor, in the faithful and
affectionate oversight of his flock, that his chief excellence lay. The pres-
ent church edifice, erected about 1852, occupies the site of the first, which
in 1820 had been enlarged and remodelled. In 1821 a new and larger bell
replaced that given in 1783 by John Hancock, and formerly in the New
Brick Church, Boston. This Church is also Unitarian Congregational.
A series of meetings held in the autumn of 1817, at the residence of
Beza Tucker, continued in what was called " Whitewash Hall," in Guild
Row, led to the formation of the Dudley-Street Baptist Church. The
thickly-settled portion of the town had then but one religious society, that of
the Rev. Dr. Porter. The first Baptist edifice, which was of wood, was raised
May 10, 1820, and dedicated November i ; and March 9, 1821, the society,
under the name of " The Baptist Church of Roxbury," was formed. Its
present name was adopted Feb. 28, 1850; and its present building, erected
in 1852, was dedicated July 27, i853.2
The First Universalist Society in Roxbury originated in 1818, in a course
of Sunday-evening lectures at the Town Hall by the Rev. Hosea Ballou,
assisted by the Rev. Paul Dean. Beginning its career at about the same time
as the Baptist church, it was, like that, made up largely of seceders from the
Old First Church.3
St. James's Church, on St. James Street, the first Episcopal church in
Roxbury, originated in May, 1832, and was incorporated in 1833. The
parish was organized Aug. 9, 1832. Prior to the consecration of its
1 [The succession of pastors of the churches 24), William Leverett (1825-39), Thomas Ford
in Roxbury can be found, when not given in this Caldicott (1840-48), Thomas Davis Anderson
chapter, in those in this volume relating to the (1848-61), Henry Melville King (1863 — ).
several denominations. — ED.] 8 [Its history is told in Dr. Miner's chapter
- Its pastors have been : Joseph Elliot (1822- in this volume. — ED.]
582 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
church building, by Bishop Griswold, Aug. 7, 1834, services were held
weekly in the Female High-School house on Bartlett Street. The church
was enlarged by the addition of awing on the west side in 1862; a new
chapel was built in 1877-78.'
The Eliot Congregational Church, in Kenilworth Street, an off-shoot of
the Old First Church, was organized Sept. 18, 1834. Until the completion
and dedication of its edifice, Nov. 25, 1835, services were held at the Town
Hall, the Rev. Jacob Abbott officiating.
The Winthrop-Street Methodist Episcopal Society, incorporated in 1859,
had its beginning in 1838, holding its meetings in a hall in Guild Row and
at the Town Hall, until the completion, in December, 1840, of their house
in Williams Street, now Shawmut Avenue. In August, 1852, they sold this
property, and took possession of the house on Warren Street formerly occu-
pied by the Baptist society, and which they caused to be removed to the site
now occupied by the Warren Block. This house was destroyed by fire
early in the morning of March 29, 1868. Services were held in the Uni-
versalist church until the completion of their present edifice on Winthrop
Street, the first service being held there July 4, 1869. The new building was
dedicated Nov. 28, 1869. A division of the society having in the mean-
time occurred, ninety members withdrew and formed the Highland Metho-
dist Society, whose house of worship is at 160 Warren Street.
The Mount Pleasant Unitarian Church, on Dudley Street, is another off-
shoot from the Old First Church in Eliot Square. The society was organ-
ized May 6, 1845, an^ its house, built on the site of the old Welde home-
stead, was dedicated in the following year.
St. Joseph's (Roman Catholic) church, on Circuit Street, was built in
1846. Of the forty-two places of worship at present in Roxbury, eight
are Methodist Episcopal, seven Trinitarian Congregational, six Baptist, six
Roman Catholic, four Unitarian Congregational, three Episcopal, three Uni-
versalist, and two Union. There are one each of the Lutheran, Sweden-
borgian, and Second Advent denominations.
In 1790 the number of pupils in the five town schools was two hundred
and twenty-five. A new school-house was built in 1798 on what is now
Palmer Street, and two others were soon afterward established at Canter-
bury. Nine school districts were formed in 1807, four of them in the east-
erly parish; and the total expenditure for schools increased from $1,000 to
$1,500. The yearly cost of education was less than four dollars per scholar.
In 1816 the appropriation was increased to $2,000, and uniformity in rules
and regulations, and also in text-books, was secured. In 1829 committees
were formed for visiting the schools at convenient times and without cere-
mony. In 1831 the upper part of the Town House was fitted up for pupils
1 Its pastors have been: A. D. W. Howe John Wayland (1848-58), George S. Converse
(1832-35), William Staunton (1835-37), A. D. (1859-71), Percy Browne (1872—). See the
W. Howe (1837-46), Robert B. Hall (1846-47), chapter by the Rev. Phillips Brooks, D.D.
ROXBURY IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 583
of both sexes above the age of seven years, and the appropriation increased
to $3,000, — a little less than sixty cents per capita for each inhabitant. At
this time there were eleven primary schools. In 1846, when the city was in-
corporated, there were six grammar and thirteen primary schools. The old
grammar-school building, erected in 1742 and enlarged in 1820, having
become totally inadequate to the requirements of the school, was sold in
1834, and a new one built in Mount- Vernon Place, now Kearsarge Avenue.
In 1844, after a five years' experiment of making this a high school, its old
organization was restored, such English studies only being required as are
compatible with the latter character. Besides primaries, there are now two
high schools and ten grammar schools in the Roxbury district. One of
the most successful of its private schools was that established at Jamaica
Plain by Stephen M. Weld, in 1827, and taught by him for a period of
thirty years. Notre Dame Academy, a Roman Catholic institution, is on
Washington, opposite Townsend, Street.
On the decease of Benjamin Bussey, in 1842, he bequeathed his valuable
estate of three hundred acres to Harvard University, for the establishment
of a seminary for " instruction in practical agriculture, useful and orna-
mental gardening, botany, and such other branches of natural science as
may tend to promote a knowledge of practical agriculture and the various
arts subservient thereto." Courses of lectures were also to be given. One
half the net income is applied to maintain this institution ; the residue is
equally divided between the Divinity and Law schools of the University.
The Bussey Institution, which includes the Arnold Arboretum, is on South
(near Morton) Street, and went into operation in 1871. Its principal build-
ing is of Roxbury stone, in the modern Gothic style.
The first public library of Roxbury, established in 1805, reorganized as
the "Social Library" in 1831, and as the " Roxbury Athenaeum" in 1848,
was incorporated in 1851, and is in Bradley's Building. Caleb Fellowes,
founder of the Fellowes Athenaeum, died in 1852, leaving $40,000 to be laid
out for a suitable lot of ground, and in erecting thereon an edifice for an
institution similar in plan to the Philadelphia Athenaeum, while the income
of a further bequest was to be applied to the purchase of books. It was
incorporated in 1866, and having been joined by a covenant with the Rox-
bury Branch of the Boston Public Library, the united libraries were dedi-
cated July 9, and opened for public use July 16, 1873. ] A branch of the
Public Library has also been established at Jamaica Plain. At Roslindale
and at West Roxbury it has other less important dependencies.
The Norfolk Gazette, the first newspaper in Roxbury, was published
weekly, by Allen & Weeks, from Dec. 15, 1824, to Feb. 6, 1827, when it
1 A sufficient account of Mr. Fellowes and the Athenaeum will be found in a pamphlet com-
memorating the dedication in 1873.
584 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
was discontinued. The Norfolk County Journal, now the Home Journal,
also a weekly, was established in 1849, and was edited for two years by
William A. Crafts. The Roxbury City Gazette was established by William
H. Hutchinson in 1861. The Suburban News, a weekly, issued at Jamaica
Plain, is now in its ninth year.
The old almshouse on Centre Street was abandoned in 1831, and a much
larger one built on Marcella Street. In 1849 the Brook-Farm property \vus
bought for a poor-farm by the city, but it was soon afterward sold. The
Marcella-Street property is now a home for Boston's vagrant boys, while a
portion of the city poor are kept at the Austin Farm Alms-house, in West
Roxbury. There is a small-pox hospital at Canterbury.
In March, 1784, the Roxbury Artillery Company was formed, and John
Jones Spooner, afterward an Episcopal clergyman, was chosen captain.
This corps, which did good service in Shays's Rebellion, became an infantry
company in 1857, taking its present name, — "The Roxbury City Guard."
Its first parade was on July 5, 1784. The Norfolk Guards were organ-
ized Jan. 27, 1818, Alexander H. Gibbs commander; reorganized in 1838,
and disbanded in 1855. This company, composed of prominent citizens,
was highly distinguished for its bearing and efficiency. The Roxbury
Horse Guards, Captain A. D. Hodges, organized May 16, 1861, re-organ-
ized in 1864, now forms a part of the active volunteer militia of the
State.
The Fire Department of Roxbury has always been remarkable for its
promptitude, skill, and efficiency. In 1784 its first fire-engine was located
in Roxbury Street, opposite Vernon, the site of the Greyhound Tavern.
Daniel Munroe was its captain; William Bosson, Jr., clerk and treasurer.
Its members were John Swift, David Swift, John Williams, Jr., Elijah
Weld, Joseph Weld, Joseph Richardson, William Dorr, Joshua Felton, Amos
Smith, Aaron Willard, Abel Hutchins, Captain Samuel Mellish, Ensign R.
H. Greaton, Jeremiah Gore, Jesse Doggett, and \Villiam Blaney. Fire wards
were also chosen. A new fire-engine was established in 1787 near the
Punch-Bowl Tavern. The members of this company were John Ward,
Isaac Davis, Joseph Davenport, Joseph Crehore, James Pierce, Samuel
Barry, Captain Belcher Hancock, and Lieutenant William Bosson. In 1802
the " Torrent " No. 2 was accepted, and its company of twenty-one men
appointed. A new engine was purchased by subscription in 1819 for No. I,
and the town was asked for land on the northerly corner of the burying-
ground on which to build its house. In 1831 Roxbury had seven fire-
engines, with four hose-reels attached, — No. I, Dudley Street (new house) ;
No. 2, Centre Street, by Poor-House; Nos. 3 and 4, Jamaica Plain; No. 5,
Spring Street; No. 6, Eustis Street (new house); No. 7, "Norfolk," at
Punch-Bowl Village.
ROXBURY IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 585
The Roxbury Charitable Society, formed in September, 1794, principally
by members of the Roxbury Fire Society, was incorporated in 1799, and still
continues its career of active beneficence. Judge Lowell was its first presi-
dent. Among its promoters were Governor Sumner, Hon. John Lowell,
Hon. John Read, William Lambert, the Rev. Eliphalet Porter, Hon. Sherman
Leland, and Charles Davis. Imposing ceremonies in times past attended
its anniversaries, such as a procession with military escort, and a discourse
at the First Church. Among its anniversary orators were Judge Lowell, the
Rev. Horace Holley, Edward Everett, Rev. Henry Ware, Dr. John Bartlett,
and the Rev. E. D. Griffin. Prominent among the other charitable associa-
tions of Roxbury are the Consumptive's Home, Grove Hall ; the Roxbury
Home for Aged Women and Children, Copeland Street; the House of the
Angel Guardian, Vernon Street ; the House of the Good Shepherd, Tre-
mont Street; Little Sisters of the Poor, Dudley Street; the Martin Luther
Orphans' Home, Baker Street; St. Luke's Home for Convalescents, Rox-
bury Street; and the New England Hospital for Women and Children, on
Codman Avenue.
The Washington Lodge of Freemasons, the thirteenth lodge chartered
in Massachusetts, was instituted March 14, 1796, and Worshipful Master
Ebenezer Seaver, Senior Deacon Simeon Pratt, and Junior Deacon John
Ward were publicly installed by the Grand Master, Paul Revere, October 16.
Its founders were Simeon Pratt, John Ward, Moses Harriman, Ebenezer
Seaver, Timothy Healy, Joseph Ruggles, Stephen Davis, and James Howe.
Among its past-masters were Simeon Pratt, Nathaniel Ruggles, Nathaniel
S. Prentiss, Samuel Barry, Samuel J. Gardiner, John Howe, Charles Wild,
and George Frost. The Mount Vernon Royal Arch Chapter, Lafayette
Lodge, and the Joseph Warren Commandery of Knights Templars have
since been organized in Roxbury. Odd Fellowship is represented here by
the Warren Lodge, Highland Encampment, and Quinoboquin Lodge.
Brook Farm, one of the most celebrated of the former institutions of
Roxbury, was purchased in 1841 by George Ripley and others, who as-
sociated themselves together as " The Brook-Farm Institute of Education
and Agriculture," and were afterward incorporated as " The Brook-Farm
Phalanx." l After occupying it for five or six years, they sold it to the
city for a poor-farm. It is now " The Martin Luther Orphans' Home."
Apart from the old mansions and cemeteries of Roxbury, described in
a former chapter, there are few memorials of her past in existence. Durable
monuments of the beneficence of Judge Paul Dudley are yet visible in
numerous mile-stones erected by him on the different roads leading from the
town. One of the most prominent and interesting of these is a large stone
at the corner of Centre Street, the old Dedham road ; upon its front is in-
scribed, "The | Parting | Stone | 1744 | P.Dudley;" on its northerly side it
directs to Cambridge and Watertown, and on its southerly side to Ded-
1 [This social experiment will be described in a later chapter of Vol. IV. — ED.]
VOL. in. — 74.
586 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
ham and Rhode Island. Lord Percy's soldiers read its inscription as they
passed it on their way to Lexington, one hot April forenoon; and it has
since afforded rest and information to many a tired wayfarer. Not far from
this, on the other side of the street, opposite the residence of Mr. Prang,
is a still older stone, inscribed, " Boston 3 miles, 1729." At the corner
of Eliot Street, Jamaica Plain, is another, inscribed, " Five miles to Boston
Town House, 1735." Among the old houses not previously mentioned is
the C rafts ( homestead on Tremont Street, near Parker-Hill Avenue, whose
chimney bears date 1709. The Warren House, with its memorial inscrip-
tions, and the Cochituate stand-pipe, and the adjacent monument, standing
as they do on consecrated ground, call to mind the martyrs and patriots
of '75. Among the landmarks still remembered, but which have disap-
peared, are the " Rocking-Stone," a natural curiosity situated on the Mun-
roe Farm; and the tall chimney of the chemical works, near Hog Bridge,
pronounced unsafe and taken down, after remaining a conspicuous landmark
for over thirty years.
In 1846 General H. A. S. Dearborn and others petitioned the newly
established city government of Roxbury for a rural cemetery. The pur-
chase of the Joel Seaverns farm of fifty-five acres, in Canterbury, was the
result; and to this the addition of other pieces of land adjoining have in-
creased its area to two hundred and twenty-six acres. The work of laying
out the grounds of this "Garden of the Dead" was assigned to General
Dearborn, whose skill and taste had already been successfully exerted at
Mount Auburn. The original wooden gateway, with its Egyptian designs,
gave place in 1865 to the present tasteful structure of Roxbury stone and
Caledonia freestone,' in the modern Gothic style. At the left of the entrance
is an elegant marble receiving-tomb, built in 1870. Three avenues diverge
towards different parts of the cemetery from the main entrance, opposite
which, on Snow-flake Hill, is a stone bell-tower and observatory one hun-
dred feet in height, completed in 1876. The eminences which gave the
cemetery its name are the Eliot Hills, a range of four heights in its south-
western part; Consecration Hill, at its north-eastern angle; Chapel Hill,
north of Lake Dell ; the large hill south of Consecration Hill, named for the
illustrious Warren ; and Cypress Hill. Lake Hibiscus is near the centre of
the cemetery, and is approached by avenues from its different parts. One
of the most attractive spots at Forest Hills is the grotto on Dearborn Hill.
Mount Hope Cemetery, on Canterbury Street, a little south of Forest
Hills, lies partly in Dorchester, and contains over one hundred acres. It
was consecrated June 24, 1852, and July 31, 1857, its proprietors transferred
it to the city of Boston. Other cemeteries in Roxbury are Mount Calvary,
on Mount Hope Street; Gethsemane, Baker Street; Warren, Kearsarge
Avenue; Hand-in-Hand (Jewish), Grove Street; Mount Benedict, Arnold
Street ; and St. Joseph's, Circuit Street.
Roxbury has several parks. Washington Park, the largest of these, lies
between Bainbridge and Dale streets; Highland Park, on Fort Avenue, the
ROXBURY IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 587
site of a Revolutionary fort, contains the Cochituate stand-pipe ; Fountain
Square, Orchard Park, and Madison Square are also parks of respectable
dimensions. Cedar Square, on Cedar Street, was the gift of Alvah Kitt-
redge, Esq., to the town. Other smaller breathing-spaces are Walnut, Wai-
den, Bromley, and Lewis parks. Forest and Oakland gardens are popular
and attractive summer resorts.
Salt was in the early days made at the " Salt Pans," near the town land-
ing. Not far from this place General Joseph Palmer, conspicuous in the
Revolutionary annals of the State, erected salt works, which were in suc-
cessful operation when his sudden death, in 1788, brought the enterprise to
a premature close. A fulling mill was established by John Pierpont on
Stony River, near the site of Day's cordage factory, in 1658. The manufac-
ture of leather was for a long time the principal one in Roxbury. Early
in the present century, John Doggett founded the well-known looking-glass
and carpet works on Roxbury Street. The Willards, celebrated clock and
watch-makers for over a century, established themselves here in 1773.
In 1792 there were near the town landing-place, at Parker Street, several
establishments, one of them owned by Ralph Smith, for the packing of
provisions and the manufacture of soap and candles ; and vessels were laden
with these commodities here. Where Arlington Street now is the channel
of approach was then, having nine feet of water at low tide. The Back Bay
was at that time an expansive and beautiful sheet of water. The large es-
tablishment of the brothers Aaron and Charles Davis for packing pro-
visions, and their distillery and tannery, were near the town wharf, now the
junction of Albany and Northampton streets. In 1 845 the value of Roxbury's
manufactures, in which one thousand six hundred and sixty-eight persons
were employed, was $2,247,684. The largest items embraced were four
cordage manufactories, sixteen tanneries, three rolling, slitting, and nail mills,
one carpet manufactory, nine bakeries, three chemical works, three starch
mills, one distillery, five soap and tallow manufactories, and one lead manu-
factory. The manufacture of boots and shoes was a large item. The most
notable of the varied industries of Roxbury at the present day is the chromo-
lithographic manufactory of L. Prang & Co., on Roxbury Street, established
in 1856. The Roxbury Carpet Company, and the Howard Watch and Clock
Company are also well known for the excellence of their productions. There
are seven large breweries in Roxbury.
According to the United States census, the population of Roxbury at
different periods has been as follows (the figures for 1860 and 1870 do not
include the population of West Roxbury) : —
1790 . . . 2,226
1810 . . . 3,669
1830 . . . 5,247
1840 . . . 9,089
1850 . . . 18,373
1860 . . . 25,137
1870 . . . 34,772
1880 . . . 78,799
588 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Roxbury is the native place of three of the generals of the Revolution,
— Warren, Heath, and Greaton ; and the birthplace or home of ten of the
governors of the State, — Thomas and Joseph Dudley, William Shirley,
Francis Bernard, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Samuel Adams, Increase
Sumner, William Eustis, and William Gaston. Besides the names already
mentioned, those of the following eminent citizens should be noted : Gen-
eral Henry Dearborn, and his son General Henry A. S. Dearborn ; General
William H. Sumner, and Admiral John A. Winslow of Kearsarge fame ; Judge
John Lowell, and his son John Lowell, Jr., a distinguished writer upon politics
and agriculture; Samuel and Franklin Dexter, William Whiting and Sherman
Leland, prominent lawyers; Hon. John Read, Ebenezer Seaver, and Ward
Nicholas Boylston, valuable citizens ; Jonathan Davies, Eliphalet Downer,
John C. Warren, and John Bartlett, skilful physicians and noted men ; Gil-
bert Stuart and Gilbert S. Newton his nephew, painters of celebrity ; and S.
G. Goodrich, Lucius Manlius Sargent, Samuel G. Drake, and Epes Sargent,
who have acquired distinction in the field of literature.
The events of the siege of Boston are the only ones of much historical
importance which have marked the annals of Roxbury, no serious confla-
gration or other grave public calamity having occurred within her borders.
Her progress, owing to her geographical position and other favoring con-
ditions, has been remarkably rapid of late years, and she must ere long
contain within her ancient limits a large share of the city's population. The
process of absorption and assimilation into the larger municipality is con-
stantly going on, and is a matter of regret to those only whose local pride
leads them to deplore the abdication of self-government and the lost identity
of the old town, and who fear that even its name may be obliterated from
the map. The inappropriate designation of Boston Highlands should be
dropped, and its old and honored name of Roxbury restored.
;^^v<
CHAPTER XVII.
DORCHESTER IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS.
BY THE REV. SAMUEL J. BARROWS,
Minister of the First Parish, 1876-80.
THE history of Dorchester for the last hundred years is not a history of
striking events. From the external side it lacks brilliancy and in-
cident, and may not be very picturesque ; but the history of no New-Eng-
land town could be written from its external side only. Beneath the
staid, quiet, homely life of the last century there have always been deep
currents of moral, intellectual, and religious force, which worked silently and
persistently, and carried the life of the town with them. In critical times we
see these forces breaking out with great vehemence ; but, for the most
part, they move on as noiselessly as the sap ascends the channels of the
tree.
We may see by looking at such a town as Dorchester, and many other
New England towns, how much growth may take place in ideas, morals,
and the internal life of a community without greatly affecting its external
institutions. It may be truly said of the New-England town, what seems
rather paradoxical when applied to material things, — that it is larger on
the inside than on the outside. Nevertheless, we soon distrust the perma-
nence and reality of the spirit of progress unless we see it taking outward
form and effect ; and Dorchester can point to substantial embodiments of
that spirit in its own history. It may be said, however, that in this town
progress always struggled with a powerful conservative tendency which pre-
vented it from advancing too hastily on the one hand, while it retarded
sometimes that advancement which was necessary for its health. If the old
settlers could wake up and see the town as it is to-day, they would recognize
a vast number of changes. Would they be willing to admit that every
change is an improvement?
In our last chapter1 we carried the history of Dorchester through the
provincial period to the close of the Revolutionary WTar. We find the town,
geographically and materially, just where it stood before, but with the old-
time loyalty directed with increased fervor towards the new government to
which it had transferred its allegiance, and which it had given so much of its
i Vol. II. P. 357.
590 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
blood and treasure to establish. It is a fact to be noted, that whatever con-
servatism Dorchester may have had in practical methods, it was always
radical and progressive in its patriotism. Whenever the question of civil
liberty came up, it was in the fore-front.
It has been noticed that Dorchester's jealousy of any interference with
State rights and liberties led it to be suspicious and oppositive of the union
of the colonies proposed in 1754; but when such a union was needed for
the protection of the colonial liberties, the town was prompt and warm in
its acceptance, and never wavered in its loyalty. In 1809, when Massachu-
setts was greatly disturbed and excited, owing to the imposition of the em-
bargo, and inflammatory meetings were held in various towns protesting
against the course of the Government, Dorchester was firm in its support.
It drew up a remonstrance, and saw " with the sincerest sorrow that a num-
ber of towns were so lost to their national allegiance, and so heedless of the
conflict which might result from the prosecution of their measures," that
they had passed resolutions and presented petitions to the Legislature
" highly insulting to the national authority, and appealing to the authority
of the State to resist the laws of the Union on a subject exclusively within
the constitutional authority of the Government of the United States. We
consider," they add, " the union of the American States as the ark of our
safety and the rock of our defence against invasion from without or violence
from within. We will, therefore, cling to it as the last hope of our liberties."
There was an apprehension in Dorchester that the motive of some of the
leaders in that " uneasiness " was to demolish the republican government
and to erect a hereditary monarchy on its ruins. " A system of this kind
or any part of it," they said, " we are free to declare we will oppose to
blood." If the views of the town upon the subject of State rights are not
indicated with sufficient clearness in the preceding paragraphs, they are left
beyond doubt in the paragraph which follows : " To resist by arms a law
of our State Legislature of an interior and local nature would be treason
against the Commonwealth. On such an occasion the inhabitants of this
town would be found among the first to support the laws and repel the
treason. It also cannot be less an act of treason against the National Gov-
ernment to resist by force a law of theirs on the subject of national con-
cerns, although unfortunately such resistance should be sanctioned by the
State Legislature."
Surely here is a change from the suspicious spirit of 1754, when Dor-
chester feared a union of the colonies as destructive to the liberty of the
State. If such was the position of the town in 1809, we need not be sur-
prised at the stand which it took in 1861. It is hardly necessary to say
that during the war of 1812—14 the town, without distinction of party, used
all its means to " defend its soil and repel the hostile invader."
A profound interest in the life and development of the nation, of which
Dorchester was one of the first seeds, is a marked feature in its history; yet
the local affairs of the town were never neglected. The arts of peace were
DORCHESTER IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS.
591
more sedulously cultivated than the arts of war. The public spirit, which
was prompt to rally when the nation was in danger, manifested itself in the
long years of peace and plenty. It is shown in all matters relating to
public improvements, in the construction of roads, the care of the old cem-
etery, the administration of the schools, and in a pious regard for the inter-
ests of religion. While the town is anxious over the result of the embargo,
it is seriously considering the question of " inoculation by cow-pox." We
are impressed again with the importance of the ministerial function at this
time. " The two reverend ministers of the town .and the selectmen " were
appointed a committee to return " a respectable answer " to the important
and interesting letter addressed to them by the selectmen and committee
of the town of Maiden on this subject. The town afterward voted to ap-
prove of the method, and to recommend it to the inhabitants of the town ;
and the ministers were requested to read these votes to the congregations
the next Lord's Day after divine service. The doctors were asked to keep
a register of those inoculated, and to return it to the town clerk ; but other-
wise they do not seem to have been consulted. The ravages of small-pox,
which had visited Dorchester in previous years, may have hastened a deci-
sion on this point.
In reading the town records we are struck by the thoroughness with
which the committees did their duty. Dorchester evidently seemed to
them an important place ; it Was worthy of their best work. The reports
on the condition of schools and on the general subject of education are
models of conscientious and painstaking fidelity; and some of them, made
within the last forty years, would bear re-printing for their broad and sensi-
ble views. In another part of the town records we have from the com-
mittee on roads a long treatise on the art of road-making, showing great
practical knowledge of the subject, and written not only to interest the
town ear, but to influence the town pocket. The excellent roads of Dor-
chester to-day are not wholly owing to annexation.
The cause of education did not languish. The individual bequests to the
school fund, already noticed in the first volume, were increased in 1797 by
the gift of nearly ten acres of woodland from the Hon. James Bowdoin, son
of Governor Bowdoin; and in 1803 by the gift of a lot of land containing
about five thousand feet, from John Capen, Jr. Noah Clapp, town clerk, in
a letter to the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1792, says that up to that
time more than thirty from Dorchester had been graduated at Harvard Col-
lege, and that more than twenty of these had been preachers of the gospel,
— a fact which shows that a close relation was assumed between education
and religion.
In 1 784 the town voted "that such girls as can read in the Psalter be
allowed to go to the Grammar School from the first day of June to the first
day of October." 1 This is the first vote in which provision is made for the
public education of girls. Though there were dame-schools in which they
1 Town Records, iv. 79.
592
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
received instruction in sewing and reading and spelling, their attendance on
the public schools seems to have been confined previously to one afternoon
annually at the general catechising in the fall of the year, " where each
child was expected to answer two questions at least from the Assembly's
catechism." l By the year 1803 there were four annual schools established.
The town made a small yearly appropriation for their support, the salary of
the teacher being about what a private soldier receives now in our army, —
thirteen dollars a month and board. The annual appropriation for schools
in 1812 was $2,700, and from 1820 to 1824, $2,300. The six school-masters
then received $400 each, the income from school funds amounting to $257.
In the years 1825 and 1828 the appropriation was $2,500; in 1830, $2,300.
In 1857 the amount voted for schools in Dorchester was $23,622.98, or ten
times as much as in 1830. The sum appropriated by the town for the pub-
lic education of each child between the ages of five and fifteen was in that
year (1857) $13.18. Dorchester stood in that respect the third in the
Commonwealth, and the second in Norfolk County, — the towns of Brook-
line and Nahant alone exceeding it. In 1869 — the last year of Dorchester's
life as a town — the appropriation for schools was $54,000.
A committee in 1827 reported it expedient to have a High School; but
the report was not accepted, and final action was not taken until 1852, when
an appropriation of $6,000 was made for the building and a central location
selected, so that four fifths of the children of the town were within two miles
of the school-house. Such a central location was necessary, as the town,
in spite of loss of territory, was still nine miles long and two and a half
broad,2 and contained eight thousand inhabitants. The High School was
opened in December, 1852, when fifty-nine scholars were admitted. The
first principal was Mr. William J. Rolfe, who was succeeded by Mr. Jona-
than Kimball in 1856. Mr. Elbridge Smith is the present incumbent.
In the previous record the religious history of the town has been prac-
tically synonymous with the history of the parish. It continued to be so
until the early part of this century. With the increase of population other
houses of worship became necessary. With larger toleration and growth in
opinion, Dorchester, characterized for nearly two hundred years by remark-
able religious unity, became the home of a variety of churches and sects.
The Rev. Thaddeus Mason Harris succeeded the Rev. Moses Everett
as pastor of the First Parish, and was ordained October, 1793. He
was born in Charlestown, Mass., July 7, 1768; graduated at Harvard in
1787. He is well remembered by many of the old citizens of Dorchester
and Boston for his genial nature, his sparkling wit, his aptness in the choice
of texts and subjects, and the fountains of tears that were often unsealed in
the delivery of his earnest and moving discourses. The shelves of Harvard
College Library, of which he was librarian for a short time before going to
Dorchester, bear many of his works, which attest his scholarship and the
1 History of DorctusUr, p. 450. 2 Records, x. 610.
. DORCHESTER IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 593
wide range of his studies in science, religion, and history. Dr. Harris was
a prominent member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and he de-
serves especial mention in this book because of his deep interest in the
history of the town and of the church whose pastor he was for forty-three
years. He did more than any one before him to collect and arrange the
written, and to record the oral, traditions of the place and people.
Dr. Harris was succeeded by the Rev. Nathaniel Hall, who became
associated with him as colleague in 1835, was made sole pastor in 1836, and
THADDEUS MASOX HARRIS.
held the office till his death in 1875, — a period of forty years. Mr. Hall's
saintly character and his devotion to his calling were marked features of his
effective but unpretentious ministry. He was succeeded by the writer of
this chapter.
In a period of two hundred and fifty years the First Parish of Dorchester
had but ten successive ministers ; but from the settlement of Richard
Mather, in 1636, to 1876, — a period of two hundred and forty years, — there
were but seven successive ministers, with an average pastorate of thirty-four
years each. There have been six deacons who have held office over forty
years each. Deacon Ebenezer Clapp, the father of the present deacon of
that name, held office for fifty-one years. Deacon Henry Humphreys, one
1 This cut follows a miniature likeness owned ingham, D.D., with a long list of his publications,
by his daughter, still living in South Boston. A is in 4 Mass. Hist. Coll., ii. See also Funeral
memoir of Dr. Harris by the Rev. N. L. Froth- Sermon by Rev. Nathaniel Hall.
VOL. III. — 75.
594
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
of the present deacons, has served forty-eight years. Meeting-house Hill
has been the site of the church building for two hundred and ten years.
The society has had five meeting-houses, some of which have been previ-
ously noticed. The present building dates from 1816, but has received
various additions and improvements.
There is one very interesting feature about the history of the First
Parish, to which allusion was made on the two hundred and fiftieth anniver-
sary of its formation, held June 17, 1880. It is, that, while from time to time
there were controversies and agitations concerning practical measures, such
as the introduction of a new hymn-book, or the change of the method of
singing from " lining out " into singing by note, there is nothing in the his-
tory of the church which shows just when it ceased to be Calvinistic and
became Unitarian. The transition was silently and almost insensibly made.1
In 1806 the Second Church was formed at the south end of the parish,
to meet the wants of the residents in that locality. The separation from
the First Parish was very peaceably and affectionately made. Dr. Harris
preached the dedication sermon of the new church. 2 When Dr. John
Codman was ordained pastor in 1807, the sermon was preached by Dr.
Channing. The property of the First Church and Parish was afterward
divided between the two organizations and the subsequently formed Third
Society, in proportion to the numbers of each.
The theological controversy, which the First Parish was spared, began
soon after to rage with considerable violence in the Second Church. The
theological councils that settled it could not allay the bitter feeling which
was engendered, and which, though now extinct, continued for many years.
As a result of this controversy, the Second Church allied itself with the
Orthodox party, retaining its pastor, Dr. Codman. The opposing party
withdrew and formed the Third Religious Society. Dr. Codman remained
pastor of the Second Church till his death in 1847. The Rev. James H.
Means was ordained and succeeded to the pulpit in 1848; and after a
very successful pastorate of thirty years, marked also by eminent fidelity as
a citizen of the town, he resigned in 1878. His successor, the present
pastor, is the Rev. E. N. Packard.
The Third Religious Society, as already stated, was formed largely of
members who left the Second Church of Dorchester. They built a meet-
ing-house at the Lower Mills, which was dedicated in 1813, and was re-
placed by another built in i84O.3
Up to 1817, or a period of one hundred and eighty-seven years, Con-
gregationalism was the only church polity known in Dorchester, and for one
hundred and seventy-six years had been confined to a single organization.
In 1817 the uniformity of the church government was broken by the estab-
1 See Proceedings of the zcpth Anniversary of key," " Madeira wine," and "gin for the sexton,"
the First Church and Parish of Dorchester, p. 1 1 8. as part of the approved expenses.
2 The bill of expenses of that dedication ser- 8 [The succession of pastors of this church
vice is still preserved by the Second Parish, and is given in Dr. Peabody's chapter in the present
it is interesting to note among the items, "whis- volume. — ED.]
DORCHESTER IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 595
lishment of a Methodist Episcopal Church, whose first building was dedi-
cated May 6, 1818, and succeeded by another in September, 1829.! The
long, roll of ministers which, in accordance with the Methodist system, this
church has had, presents a strange contrast to the small number settled over
the ancient church of the town.
A Baptist church was organized at Neponset in 1837; and another, —
the North Baptist Church, corner of Sumner and Stoughton streets, — in
1840. An Episcopal church — St. Mary's — was organized in 1847. 1°-
stead of the single church existing at the beginning of this century, there
are now twenty-one churches in the Dorchester District ; namely, ten Con-
gregational, — five of which are Trinitarian, four Unitarian, and one Uni-
versalist, — four Methodist, three Episcopalian, two Baptist, and two Roman
Catholic.2
In the earliest years of its history the inhabitants of Dorchester found
their chief occupation in fishing and farming and trading. Dorchester
never developed great commercial importance, nor did it abound in manu-
factures ; yet the water-power on the Neponset River was very early util-
ized, as was noticed in the first volume. The old grist mill was afterward
followed by a fulling mill and a snuff mill. In 1727 a paper mill was
established;3 and as early as 1765 the manufacture of chocolate was begun,
— the first made in New England. Dorchester chocolate is still known
throughout the country for its excellence ; and chocolate and paper mills
have continued to be very important features of its industry.
A corporation of the proprietors of mills on Mill Creek and Neponset
River was formed in 1798. Several tanneries were also located in the town,
and the pits where some of them stood have not yet been filled up.
In later years, while commerce at Commercial Point has decreased, the
manufactories have mainly centred at Neponset ; while South Boston —
the district which Dorchester first ceded to the city of Boston — has be-
come the site of many of the largest iron works in the country.4 What is
still known as the Dorchester District, however, has been, and promises to
remain for years to come, a place of residence for those whose occupation is
in the city proper. A few of the old farms are left, but the majority have
been cut up by streets and divided into building lots.
Dorchester has long been famous for its interest in horticulture. Dor-
chester and Roxbury furnished all the presidents and treasurers of the
Massachusetts Horticultural Society for the first twenty years after its
formation. The Rev. Dr. Harris, Captain William R. Austin, William Clapp,
Zebedee Cook, Elijah Vose, Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, John Richardson,
Samuel Downer, and Thaddeus Clapp are some among the living and the
1 [See Dr. Dorchester's chapter in this vol- century, the comparative number of churches
ume. — ED.] would be much increased.
2 If we add South Boston, Washington Vil- 8 [See Vol. II., p. 462. — ED.]
lage, and Hyde Park, which were included with- * [See the chapter on " The Industries of Bos-
in the Dorchester limits at the beginning of this ton," in Vol. IV. — ED.]
596 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
dead who have devoted themselves zealously to the culture and improve-
ment of fruits and flowers. Hon. Marshall P. Wilder has cultivated in his
own orchard more than twelve hundred kinds of fruit ; and on one occasion
sent over four hundred varieties of the pear for exhibition.1
The love of the simple old colonial ways lingered long in Dorchester,
and made it somewhat intolerant of modern inventions. The conservative
character of the town was shown in its opposition to railroads. In 1842 a
petition was presented to the Legislature for the privilege of building a
railroad from Boston to Quincy, by any one of three routes. The town
opposed it at a meeting, Feb. 2, 1842, saying: " A great portion of the road
will lead through thickly-settled and populous parts of the town, crossing
and running contiguous to public highways, and thereby making a per-
manent obstruction to the free intercourse of our citizens from one part of
the town to another, and creating great and enduring danger and hazard to
all travel upon the common roads." The town suggested that, if it be built
at all, it be built over the marsh. The representative of the town in the
Legislature was instructed to use his " utmost endeavor to prevent, if possi-
ble, so great a calamity to our town as must be the location of any railroad
through it." A committee was appointed and counsel employed to oppose
the petition before the Legislature. The town believed that " the property
and the comfort, and perhaps the lives, of their fellow-citizens were deeply
interested in the result of their remonstrance, and that the expenses of the
ablest counsel were not to be considered when such interests were at stake."
In 1844, when a petition was made for the formation of the Old Colony
Road from Boston to Plymouth, and the petition for a road to Quincy was
renewed, it was opposed again by the committee of the town ; but opposi-
tion was finally ineffectual, and Dorchester was eventually doomed to the
" calamity" of having two steam railroads, with branch tracks. The nature
of that calamity would receive a new interpretation to-day, if these roads
for any reason should be abandoned.
The earnest and devoted patriotism which Dorchester showed during the
two wars with Great Britain was repeated in the war of the Rebellion. It is
hardly worth while to refer to the attitude of the town as expressed in the
resolutions which it was prompt to pass at the outbreak of the war. A
complete exhibit of what was really done would furnish more substantial
testimony. From the report of Adjutant-General Schouler, it appears that
Dorchester furnished one thousand three hundred and forty-two men for the
war, which was a surplus of one hundred and twenty-three over and above
all demands. Of these, thirty-one were commissioned officers. From fig-
ures furnished by Mr. N. W. Tileston, who has given much study to this
subject, we learn that the whole amount of money appropriated and ex-
pended by the town on account of the war, exclusive of State aid, was
$125,319.30. The amount received by the town from the State as State aid
1 [See Colonel Wilder's chapter, in Vol. IV. — ED.]
DORCHESTER IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 597
was $65,606.99. In the work of relief among the soldiers, the churches of
Dorchester did a noble service. The Benevolent Society of the First Parish
was organized Nov. 8, 1861, largely for this object. This society alone
during the war sent to the soldiers provisions and supplies worth from fifteen
to twenty thousand dollars. The other churches did similar work, and to-
gether must have furnished a like amount. On Sunday, Aug. 31, 1862,
when the news of the result of the second battle of Bull Run reached Dor-
chester, all the parishes in town dispensed with religious services in the
afternoon, and applied themselves to picking lint, making bandages, and
packing clothes, wine, jellies, and other refreshments for the sick and
wounded. The First Parish alone sent off twenty-one cases the next day.
The amount contributed by societies and private individuals for the relief
of soldiers and seamen during the war exceeded the sum of $50,000.
The number of Dorchester citizens who perished in the war was one
hundred. This does not include the number of men from other towns who
were sent as recruits to fill up the Dorchester companies, or those who
served in the navy. A large number of these were killed or died in rebel
prisons, or were never heard from.
In previous chapters we have noticed the fluctuation in the Dorchester
boundary. While the soul of the town was never diminished, there was
from time to time an atrophy of the body. A slice was lost here and a
slice there, until the original territory was very much diminished. Until 1793
Dorchester, as has been said, was a part of Suffolk County, and thus practi-
cally joined to Boston in all judicial matters; but more than fifty years
before this time an agitation was begun for a separation from Boston, the
complaint being made that the people who had business at the courts in
the city were long detained, to the great expense of time and money. The
town, therefore, voted, in 1743, that it was desirous that the country town-
meeting be separated from Boston, and erected into a district and county
by itself. In 1784 this vote was re-affirmed. When the separation was
finally made, in 1793, public opinion seems to have altered, and the change
met with much opposition. The town presented a memorial to the Legisla-
ture protesting against the division of the county of Suffolk, and praying
that Dorchester might be re-annexed thereto. The reasons for the opposi-
tion were the cost of additional buildings, and the great advantages attend-
ing the transaction of business in the metropolis, as the new shire town was
in a place inconvenient for the memorialists. The opposition, however, was '
not successful ; but the centrifugal force which threw off Dorchester, with
neighboring towns, into a new county, did not save it from the centripetal
movement which was gradually to draw the whole town back again, not
only into Suffolk County, but within the corporate limits of Boston itself.
Hungry Boston did not swallow Dorchester at one bite, — it took three
meals to do it. It began in 1803, by nibbling at Dorchester Neck, now
known as South Boston. Boston was steadily growing and becoming more
598 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
crowded. Dorchester Neck, which could easily be connected by a bridge,
seemed to afford the needed relief. Most of the residents of Dorchester
Neck were in favor of the annexation. They were far removed from the
centre of the town, and .the building of the bridge to Boston promised
them many advantages. Dorchester was willing to have the bridge built,
but voted against the annexation. A committee was appointed to present
a remonstrance to the Legislature. The committee presented the lament-
able fact that, since the incorporation of Dorchester, " the towns of Milton,
Stoughton, and others had been set off from it, so that the remainder was
only ten miles in length, and contained little more than seven thousand
acres of land."
But a joint committee of both Houses reported in favor of the annexa-
tion, without compensation to Dorchester. At a town-meeting, where the
action of the legislative committee was detailed, one of the Dorchester
committee stated that $6,000 might be obtained provided the town would
not oppose the project; but the town was obstinate, and voted not to
accept the $6,000 on the conditions offered. The bill passed the Legisla-
ture March 6, 1804; and Dorchester lost the money and the territory too.
In 1836 the inhabitants of Little Neck, Washington Village, petitioned
to be joined to Boston. They were four miles from the town house, and
upwards of a mile from any school, and represented that they were wholly
debarred from school privileges for several successive days in each month
by the tide-water being permitted to overflow the public road. The town
of Dorchester opposed the annexation. The committee of the General
Court reported against it, because Boston would incur great expense in lay-
ing out the streets across the salt marsh ; but the matter was only delayed,
for Washington Village was finally annexed to Boston May 21, 1855.
It took but ten or twelve years for Boston to digest this last slice of ter-
ritory, and then it was hungry for more. The sister town of Roxbury was
the first victim. Her annexation to Boston in 1868, far from meeting the
growing wants of Boston, only indicated that the^ annexation of Dorchester
was but a question of time. In 1867 the subject was more or less agi-
tated by the citizens of Dorchester themselves, who brought the matter be-
fore the Boston city government, and secured the appointment of a board
of commissioners to confer with commissioners appointed by the town.
The commission was unable to agree, but expressed the opinion that it
might become desirable to annex a portion of the town of Dorchester, " in
order to complete the elaborate system of drainage and harbor improve-
ment devised for the benefit of Boston." No immediate action followed,
but a year later the matter was taken up, — this time from the Boston side ;
and by order of the common council, passed Dec. 22, 1868, the mayor
was requested to appoint a commission of three discreet and intelligent
persons carefully to examine the subject in all its financial, industrial, and
sanitary relations, and to report the result of their doings to the city coun-
cil. The final report of this commission presented many interesting facts
DORCHESTER IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 599
which serve to show the condition of Dorchester on the eve of the annex-
ation.
While Dorchester from 1657 had steadily lost in territory through re-
division of its boundaries, there was a great gain in wealth and population.
The population of Dorchester in 1855 was 8,340; in 1865, 10,707, — an in-
crease of 2,377 m ten years; a gain of 28-^°^ per cent. The magnitude
which town affairs had assumed is also seen by the annual appropriations at
town-meetings. Notwithstanding the much greater geographical extent of
the original town, its early expenses seem small enough when compared
with those for 1869, — a few months before the vote on annexation was
taken.2 The result of the city commissioners' examination was a unanimous
report for annexation, based on " the necessity for a part, and the desirable-
ness of the whole, of the territory for the present and prospective wants of
the city, and the highly favorable financial, industrial, and sanitary condition
of the town." The commissioners noted the "strong feeling of attachment
to the name of the town and its history and traditions " which was mani-
fested, and thought that, by the annexation of the whole territory, Dorches-
ter might continue to retain her boundary and local history as a precinct of
the city.
In May, 1869, the subject came up before the Legislature. The mayor
and city council urged the annexation. The town of Dorchester was repre-
sented by a committee of eighteen gentlemen, who presented a petition signed
by between eight and nine hundred citizens. The matter came to a hearing
before the joint committee on towns. There was no organized opposition
from Dorchester, but. the measure was opposed by the Norfolk County
Commissioners. As a result of these hearings a majority of the committee
reported in favor of annexation, and presented the draft of a bill for that
purpose. A minority report urged that the annexation would be of no
commercial advantage to Boston, and that it would be of no benefit to Dor-
chester. " Her town affairs," they said, " appear to be well managed ; her
1 Its number of inhabitants was estimated - The appropriations for that year were as
at twelve thousand. follows: —
Dwelling-houses, May i, 1868 1,830 For Schools $54,000
Ratable polls 2,918 Poor in alms-house 5>ooo
Legal voters 2,100 Poor out of alms-house 3, 500
Churches 13 Insane at hospital 2,000
School-houses, of the larger class 7 Fire department 10,000
,, „ „ ' smaller class 3 Highways 25,000
One steam fire-engine, and several hand-engines Volunteer companies 1,050
Scholars 2,000 Town officers 6,000
Acres of land 4,53* Cemeteries ii5°o
Instalments and interest 27,000
Valuation for 1868 : — Interest in anticipation of taxes 5,°°°
Real estate $9,291,200 Abatement of taxes 4,ooo
Personal 6,035,100 Lighting streets 6,000
™, ,- . , ... ... Police and watch 8,000
The financial condition of the town was as Incidcntal expenses I0>000
follows : — Removal of engine-house No. 3 2,000
Town debt $147,700.00 Widening of Hancock Street 5,000
Cash on hand Feb. i, 1869 ,, „ Minot „ 4,ooo
Due from State and for taxes . ." 111,092.41 ,, ,, Adams ,, 6,000
„ Bird 3,ooo
Actual debt $36,607.59
Valuation of town property 237,182.26 Total $188,050
600 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
roads are in good condition ; her schools are among the best in the Com-
monwealth : and we fail to see that there is anything in her local affairs
which cannot be as well provided for by the town as by Boston, and with
as great economy." The Legislature accepted the majority report, and
passed an act annexing the town, provided that a majority of legal voters in
Boston and in Dorchester were in favor of it. A special election was held
simultaneously in both places, on June 22, 1869. The whole number of
votes cast in Dorchester was 1,654. There were 928 for annexation and
726 against, — a majority of 202. According to the provisions of the act,
the annexation took place on the first Monday in January (4th), 1870.
The last town-meeting was held Dec. 28, 1869, when the reports of the
selectmen were received, and a vote of thanks tendered to all the town
officers. And thus the town-meeting, which Dorchester was the first of the
New England settlements to establish, ceased to be held in the parent town ;
but only when the town itself had no longer an existence. By this act of
annexation the area of Boston, which with the annexation of Roxbury
amounted to 5,370 acres, was nearly doubled, — Dorchester adding 4,532
acres. If we add the area which Boston acquired by annexing South Boston
and Washington Village, 900 acres, the total acreage she obtained from
Dorchester was 5,432.
It is now ten years since the annexation, covering a period of long busi-
ness depression, unfavorable to rapid growth ; but the results of the union
with Boston are plainly visible. Houses are now springing up on hill and
plain. Here and there a long block of brick buildings disturbs with its
uniformity the picturesque variety of rural architecture, and reminds the
old resident of the spread of the city limits. The work of cutting new
streets, extending the sewers and water-pipes, and improving the roads
goes steadily on. The stranger to-day who wishes to see how Boston is
growing as a place of residence must inspect the Dorchester district. One
hundred and seventy-five buildings were erected here in 1880, the greater
number of these being dwelling-houses. By the latest census returns, we
find that the Dorchester District, as it was before the ward division, has a
population of twenty thousand, — an increase of eight thousand in ten years.
Amid all the changes which have been made and those which are still
making, there is one spot in the town where the colonial, the provincial, and
the national periods are all blended in the associations of the tablets which
mark the resting-places of the dead. The old burying-ground is sacredly
preserved. New and beautiful cemeteries have been added in other parts
of the town, yet here, where the dust of the ancient settlers is gathered
together, the iron gate is still open for the funeral cortege.
£// . y . (s3s<
. /
CHAPTER XVIII.
BRIGHTON IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS.
BY FRANCIS S. DRAKE.
A CENTURY ago, Brighton, not yet incorporated as a town, nor known
•**• throughout the land as the great cattle-mart of New England, was
simply a precinct or ecclesiastical parish of Cambridge, the shire-town of
Middlesex County. It was then a thinly-settled farming village, having a
single meeting-house and two school-houses, its sixty dwelling houses con-
taining a population of about four hundred souls. When, in 1805, its incor-
poration as a town was proposed, little opposition was made, public opinion
as to the justice and expediency of the measure having for some time stead-
ily gained ground. What rendered the step all the easier was the fact that
common cause was made with Brighton by the Second Parish, which also
desired a separation from Cambridge. A petition, signed by all the well-
known voters of the precinct, presented in a forcible manner many of the
reasons which had brought about its separation as a parish, and which were
equally applicable at the present juncture. The action of the town was
as follows : —
"Cambridge, South Precinct, Feb. 17, 1806.
" At a meeting of the freeholders and other inhabitants on the south side of Charles
River, legally warned and assembled, after choosing Mr. Jonathan Winship, moderator,
the following votes were passed : First, to petition the honorable General Court to be
set off as a town ; Second, to choose a committee to wait on the honorable General
Court with the petition ; Third, that Mr. Samuel Wyllis Pomeroy, Mr. Gorham Parsons,
Stephen Dana, Esq., Mr. Thomas English, Mr. Daniel Bowen, compose this committee.
" Attest : HENRY DANA, Precinct Clerk"
By an Act of the Legislature, dated Feb. 24, 1807, the town of Brighton
was formally incorporated. The town of West Cambridge, or Menotomy,
the Second Parish, was incorporated in the same month, and by the separa-
tion of the two Cambridge lost a large portion of her territory. Brighton
received another instalment of the mother town by annexation, Jan. 27,
1816.
VOL. III. — 76.
602 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
At the first town-meeting, held May 9, 1807, Henry Dana was chosen
town clerk, and Nathaniel Champney, treasurer. Dudley Hardy, Jonathan
Livermore, Thomas Gardner (son of the colonel), Benjamin Hill, and Na-
thaniel Champney were appointed selectmen. Stephen Dana was soon
afterward chosen representative to the General Court, and the sum of two
thousand dollars was appropriated to defray town charges. Mr. Dana, the
first town-clerk, served ten years and until his death. Of his successors,
Captain Joseph Warren served eighteen years, and William Warren twenty-
two years; the latter's son, William Wirt Warren, succeeded him; and he
in turn was followed by a brother, Webster F. Warren. Of the early town
treasurers, Nathaniel Champney, the first, served twenty years and until his
death, and was succeeded by Deacon Thaddeus Baldwin. Henry Heath
Larnard served from 1833 to I869.1
Cambridge Street, an important thoroughfare, was opened in 1808, from
Winship's store to the Brookline road (Harvard Street). At a very large
and full meeting, held September 12, President Jefferson was memorialized
relative to the Embargo law. In 1818 an almshouse was purchased by the
town, which, however, seems to have had very few inmates. It contained
but one resident pauper at the date of annexation. The old church, after
its removal in 1809, continued in use as a town hall until the building of a
new and more commodious edifice, dedicated Dec. 30, 1841. Its corner-
stone had been laid on the 2d of August previous. Upon annexation in
1874, when town-meetings and town discussions were to give way forever to
quiet ward-room elections of city officers, the town hall was appropriated
for police purposes and its main hall fitted up as a municipal court-room
for the district.
In June, 1825, General Lafayette visited Brighton, and was hospitably
entertained by the citizens at the hotel on the corner of Washington and
Cambridge streets. This building, which in early times had been the man-
sion-house of the Winship family, was at that time occupied by Mr. Samuel
Dudley. The school children were arranged in two lines, between which the
General, accompanied by his son, George Washington Lafayette, passed.
Some of those children still remember that bright June day, and fondly
cherish the recollection of the kiss bestowed upon them by the gallant
Frenchman. A lady who saw him at this time says : " The appearance of
Lafayette, with his coat thrown back, his ugly, benevolent, kind, old French
face, with the high reddish-brown wig, and the small, beaming eyes, is
indelibly fixed in my memory."
On the occasion of Henry Clay's visit to the town in October, 1833, a
bountiful collation was spread in the large dining-hall of the recently erected
Cattle Fair Hotel. Mr. Clay is said to have recognized in the yards some
of his fine steers, which, as it was before the day of railroads, had made the
tedious journey from Ashland, Kentucky, on foot. In the following year
1 The town acknowledged its appreciation of on his retirement from office, with a massive silver
his long and faithful services by presenting him, pitcher, bearing an appropriate inscription.
BRIGHTON IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 603
the Boston and Worcester, now the Boston and Albany, Railroad was
opened.1
On Feb. 24, 1857, half a century of the town's existence was completed,
during which it had gained materially in population and in wealth. The
day was joyfully celebrated by the glad peal of church bells at sunrise and
sunset, by the discharge of cannon, and by brilliant fireworks in the evening.
One citizen only, Mr. Edward Sparhawk, was living who had voted for the
town's incorporation fifty years before. He was a descendant of Nathaniel
Sparhawk, one of the earliest emigrant settlers of Cambridge, and died Sept.
3, 1867, m m's ninety-seventh year.
At a town-meeting, May 3, 1861, called for the purpose of raising a vol-
unteer company for the war of the Rebellion which had just begun, two
thousand dollars was appropriated to uniform and equip said company, and
twenty dollars was also voted to each private when called into active service.
July 15, 1862, the town voted to pay one hundred and twenty-five dollars
bounty for each volunteer to make up its quota of forty men ; the five
thousand dollars required, to be raised by a tax on property, poll-tax pay-
ers to contribute such sums as they saw fit. The town's quota was filled
in three months. October 21, it was voted to pay each nine months' vol-
unteer one hundred dollars, and the town treasurer was authorized to borrow
the money. November 26, one thousand two hundred dollars was appro-
priated by the town to furnish the town's quota under the President's new
call. Though not represented in the army by any distinct organization,
Brighton furnished three hundred and sixty-five men to aid in suppressing
the Rebellion, — a surplus of five over the number required. Fifteen were
commissioned officers. The amount of money expended by the town, ex-
clusive of State aid, was seventy-eight thousand and fifty dollars.
The act of incorporation required the town to keep open and support,
as she had heretofore done, the bridge over Charles River. This subject,
as well as that of the fisheries of the river, — once a matter of considerable
pecuniary interest, — was from time to time discussed and acted upon by
the town-meeting. By an Act of the Legislature, passed March n, 1862,
the city of Cambridge and the town of Brighton were " authorized and re-
quired to rebuild the great bridge over Charles River," the expense to be
borne " in proportion to the respective valuations of said city and town ; "
and it was provided that a draw not less than thirty-two feet wide should be
constructed " at an equal distance from each abutment," that " the opening
in the middle of said draw " should be the dividing line between Cambridge
and Brighton at that point, and that thereafter each corporation should
maintain its half part of the whole structure at its own expense. This, with
all her other public obligations, was assumed by the city of Boston upon
annexation.
After a municipal existence of sixty-seven years, the annexation of
Brighton to Boston was effected, Jan. 5, 1874, the Act of the Legislature
1 [See Mr. C. F. Adams's chapter on Canals and Railroads. — ED.]
604 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
authorizing it, dated May 21, 1873, having been accepted by the city and
town, Oct. 8, 1873. To produce this result, the town in January, 1872,
memorialized the Legislature for annexation, and its petition was unani-
mously sustained by a commission appointed by the city to examine and
report thereon. To the city the advantages of annexation were to be found
in the protection of public health by inspection and supervision of her meat
supply, and by organizing under one head a general system of sewerage, in
concert of action in projecting improvements of mutual benefit, and in the
acquisition of territory for houses at a moderate cost. The needs of
Brighton were a more plentiful supply of water, a better system of streets
and drainage as well as protection from fire, and better police and health
regulations. These desirable ends either have been, or are in a fair way of
being, satisfactorily accomplished.1
We have elsewhere recorded the gathering of the First Church here in
1780, — some thirty persons in all, including a few from Newton, Menotomy,
and Brookline, having thus associated themselves together for religious
worship. The present church edifice occupies very nearly the site of the
original building of 1744, which stood in front of it, a little to the west. It
was begun Sept. 21, 1808, and completed for dedication, June 22, 1809.
The old church was then moved to a spot opposite the site of the town
house, its lower story converted into two school-rooms, and its upper story
into a town hall. Rev. John Foster, D.D., its first pastor, was born in
Western, now Warren, Massachusetts, April 19, 1763; graduated at Dart-
mouth College in 1783; resigned his pastorate here, Oct. 31, 1827, at the
close of its forty-third year, and died Sept. 16, 1829. Mr. Foster was a
scholarly and kindly man, a good talker, and dwelt more upon the practical
than the theoretical side of religion. He resided for a long time in the old
parsonage still standing at the foot of Rockland Street. A monument in
the ancient burying-ground on Market Street bears an inscription from the
pen of the Rev. Dr. Francis, of Watertown, testifying to his piety, fidelity,
and usefulness. In 1785 he married Hannah, daughter of Grant Webster.
Mrs. Foster was the author of The Coquette, or History of Eliza Wharton,
one of the earliest of American novels. Two of her daughters, Mrs. Cush-
ing and Mrs. Cheney, are well-known writers.2 This church is, in sentiment,
Congregational Unitarian.
Of the seven churches now in Brighton, the next in order is the Evan-
gelical Congregational church, gathered April 4, 1827. Its first house,
dedicated Sept. 13, 1827, was removed in June, 1867, to give place to the
new edifice on the same site. Services were held in the old house till
November 3, and on December 20 the society worshipped in the vestry of
1 [See Mr. Bugbee's chapter, " Under the Whitney, son of the Rev. Peter Whitney, was
Mayors," in the present volume. — ED.] born at Quincv, Massachusetts, Sept. 13, 1812;
2 Dr. Foster's successors are named in Dr. graduated at Harvard College, 1833; ordained
Peabody's chapter; one of them, Frederic A. Feb. 21, 1844, and died Oct. 21, 1880.
BRIGHTON IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 605
their new church. Its corner-stone had been laid Aug. 13, 1867, and the
church was dedicated May 14, I868.1
Third in the order of time is the Roman Catholic Church. Prior to the
building of its first house on Bennett Street in May, 1856, services had been
held in private halls by the Rev. J. M. Finotti, minister in charge. This
house was destroyed by fire, Dec. 7, 1862. A new building of wood on the
same site proving insufficient for the wants of the society, the corner-stone
of the large stone edifice on the northwest corner of Market and Arlington
streets was laid Sept. 22, 1872. It is not yet completed, but services are
held in its vestry by Rev. P. J. Rogers, minister in charge. Saint Columb-
kille, as this church is named, is one of the largest and most imposing
churches of the order.2
The Brighton Avenue Baptist Church, in Union Square, was organized
Dec. 2, 1853. Its corner-stone was laid Sept. 11, 1855; services were first
held in its vestry in January, 1856, and it was dedicated Feb. 10, i857.3
The First Universalist church, in Cambridge Street near Union Square",
was organized June 12, 1860. Its chapel was dedicated Aug. 7, i86i.4
Services of the Protestant Episcopal Church were first held in Brighton
town hall, Sept. 10, 1854, by the Rev. Cyrus F. Knight. They were con-
tinued by lay readers and neighboring clergymen until the church of the
Epiphany was organized, Jan. 8, 1863, with David Greene Haskins as rector.
A church edifice was erected on Washington Street, corner of Church Street,
in which services were first held, Sept. I, 1864. This property was sold in
1872, and a new parish, Saint Margaret's, organized; Charles A. Holbrook
being rector. He was succeeded by Thomas Cole. Its present rector is
Augustus Prime.
The Methodist Episcopal church, on the corner of Farrington and Har-
vard avenues, the seventh and last established in Brighton, was organized
March 24, 1872, and the corner-stone of its edifice was laid on Christmas
day, 1876. During its erection the society worshipped in the Universalist
church.5
Besides the original school-house of 1722, there was, prior to the year
1800, a second on the west corner of Cambridge and North Harvard streets,
which was removed about 1830. The teachers of these early public schools,
as well as of the private schools with which the town has always been well
provided, were very generally supplied, as was the pulpit here, from those
who were in some way associated with the neighboring college. The district
1 [The succession of the pastors is given in Bowles (Aug. 23, i86i-Jan. i, 1867) ; William R.
Dr. Tarbox's chapter on "Congregational (Trin- Thompson (Aug. 6, i868-Aug. 31, 1871) ; F. E.
itarian) Churches" in this volume. — ED.] Tower (Jan. I, 1872 — ).
2 [See the chapter tin "The Roman Catholic 4 [For the succession of pastors in this
Church." — ED.] church see Dr. Miner's chapter on "The Cen-
3 Its pastors have been : J. M. Graves (Feb. tury of Universalism " in this volume. — ED.]
I, i854-Jan. i, 1856; died Jan. 15, 1879, aged 76) ; 5 Its ministers have been: John P. Otis
J. M. Benham (July 28, i856-Sept. i, 1857); J. (1872-74); Willard Taylor Perrin (1874-76);
W. Parker (Nov. i, i857~July i, 1859); S. M. William G. Richardson (1876-79); W. H. Hatch
Stimson (Aug. 7, iSsg-June i, 1861); Ralph H. (1879-80); W.G.Leonard (1880—).
6o6 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
system of schools was superseded here by the graded system soon after its
adoption by Cambridge in 1834. A school similar in character to a high
school, established by a private corporation on Academy Hill, was kept
here in 1839 and 1840 by Josiah Rutter. This was superseded by the pub-
lic high school kept in the same building, and taught by John Ruggles
from 1841 to 1859. Upon the excellent foundation laid by the ripe scholar-
ship and wide experience of Mr. Ruggles, a flourishing institution has been
reared.1 A liberal support was accorded to her schools after the incorpora-
tion of the town ; and in the years 1842 and 1843 she stood first among the
cities and towns of the Commonwealth in the pro rata appropriation for
each pupil. Two of Brighton's largest school-houses, the Allston and the
Bennett schools, are among the finest in the city. The land upon which
the latter stands, on Agricultural Hill, was given to the town in 1861 by
Stephen H. Bennett.
The private schools of Brighton are often referred to in records of the
last century. James, son of Caleb Dana, taught a well-remembered school
for boys and girls at the beginning of the century in the old Dana mansion
on Washington near Allston streets. Jacob Knapp, a graduate of Harvard
in 1802, taught for several years, at his house on Bowen's Hill, a classical
school of much repute for boys. Hosea Hildreth, a graduate of 1805, taught
a private school, and also gave instruction in singing and music. Major
Thomas Hovey, a soldier of the Revolution, — still remembered in tradition,
— J. F. Durivage, Teacher Miles, and Jonas Wilder taught private schools here
more than fifty years ago. Professor Henry W. Torrey, of Harvard Univer-
sity, and several others, while undergraduates, taught in the public schools at
different periods. Until 1795 the schools were generally under the charge
of the selectmen of Cambridge. At that time they came under the control
of a committee of six, chosen to superintend them and " to carry into effect
the School Act." The Rev. John Foster and Jonathan W'inship represented
Brighton upon this committee. In 1820 there were three public schools in
the town, having an attendance of one hundred and seventy children out of
two hundred and thirty-three of a suitable age; in 1846 the pupils num-
bered four hundred.
As early as 1824, when there were as yet few public libraries in the
State, the Brighton Social Library was formed by an association of citizens.
This institution was in 1858 merged in the Brighton Library Association,
incorporated by the legislature for the circulation of books, for public lec-
tures, and for exercises in debate, declamation, and composition. In 1863
Mr. James Holton left a bequest for a public town-library, the provisions of
which were fulfilled in 1864 by the election of trustees and the organization
of the Holton Public Library. When Brighton was annexed, in 1874, the
imposing library building of brick and freestone, on Rockland Street, be-
gun by the town, was completed by the city at a cost of seventy thousand
1 When he retired, in 1859, a festival in his preciation in which he was held by his numerous
honor, and a service of silver, testified to the ap- friends and pupils.
BRIGHTON IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 607
dollars, and was dedicated, Oct. 29, 1875, as a branch of the Public Library
of Boston.1
Until the establishment of a post-office in Brighton, in 1817, the people
of the town were compelled to go over the river to Cambridge for postal
service. The Rev. Noah Worcester, D.D., the first postmaster of the town,
was commissioned Feb. 3, 1817, and held the office, assisted by a daughter,
until age and infirmity obliged him to resign. He had been a citizen of
Brighton, which he had several times represented in the State Legislature,
from 1813 till his death, Oct. 31, 1837, aged seventy-nine. For some years
he edited in Boston The Christian Disciple, subsequently entitled The Friend
of Peace, of which cause he was commonly called the " Apostle." He was
the intimate friend and associate of William Ellery Channing, and was emi-
nent as a thinker and writer on theological and philanthropic subjects. His
successors in the office have been J. B. Mason (1837-43), William War-
ren (1843-57), Timothy Munroe (1857-61), and John F. Day (1861-64), a
soldier of the Republic who died of starvation in the rebel prison at Millen,
Ga., in October, 1864. His widow, commissioned in 1865, has since had
charge of the office. A second post-office, discontinued since annexation,
was established in 1868 in the eastern part of Brighton, at the point where
the Boston and Albany Railroad crosses Cambridge Street, formerly known
as Cambridge Crossing. A new station-house was erected here by that
corporation, and named Allston, — a designation which still attaches to this
section of the city.
About the year 1810, the brothers Jonathan and Francis Winship began
in a small way, on Washington Street, opposite their mansion-house, the
trade in seeds and flowers, trees and fruits, which has since become so im-
portant a feature in the business of the town. These pioneers have been
followed by Joseph Breck & Son, William C. Strong, and many others who
have pursued the same healthful and attractive industry. The cultivation
of the strawberry has long been a specialty here, — two noted varieties, the
Brighton Pine and the Scott's Seedling, having originated in this town. Be-
sides the large area occupied for nurseries in Brighton, about two hundred
acres are devoted to market gardening.
The cattle business of Brighton, which dates from the occupation of Cam-
bridge by Washington's forces in 1775, was established by Jonathan Winship,
builder of the Winship mansion, a fine old residence of the last century still
standing. Cattle were formerly driven from great distances to the Brighton
market, and the sales were even then very large, as many as 5,000 beef-
cattle being sold and slaughtered in a single week. In 1840 the sales
amounted to $2,449,231. Before the day of railroads and the development
of Chicago as a rival, most of the Brighton beef was put up in barrels and
salted. The running of the Boston and Albany Railroad through the centre
1 [A pamphlet giving an account of the dedi- historical address by the Rev. Frederick A.
catory services was issued by the city, with an Whitney. — ED.]
6o8
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
of this district was the beginning of an era of more speedy and com-
fortable conveyance, and it at once largely increased the quantity of live-
stock brought to market. As much as $2,000,000 per annum has been
received by this road for the transportation of cattle, and it has recently ex-
pended large sums in increasing its facilities for this important business.
For the year 1880, Brighton's receipts of live stock were, — cattle 229,894;
sheep and lambs, 470,449; calves, 25,951 ; hogs, 751,198. The number of
cattle slaughtered was 84,487 ; sheep, 307,126; calves, 13,434. This traffic,
THE WINSHIP MANSION.1
of which she once had a monopoly, is now shared with Watertown and
North Cambridge. The establishment and successful operation of the ab-
attoir has completely revolutionized this business. By an act of the Mas-
sachusetts Legislature, approved June 26, 1870, the Butchers' Slaughtering
and Melting Association in Brighton was incorporated, with a capital of
$200,000, for bringing the business of slaughtering, melting, and rendering
under one general management. A tract of sixty acres of dry and sandy
soil lying on the Charles River in the southwest part of the town, equally
accessible to this and the Watertown market, was purchased. The work of
building, grading, and constructing was begun in 1872, under the sanction
1 The Winship house, a mansion of consider-
able importance in its day, was erected in 1780
by Jonathan Winship, a farmer who cultivated a
large tract of land in its vicinity, and who died
Oct. 3, 1784, aged 65. He was a descendant of
Lieutenant Edward Winship (he wrote it Win-
shipp) who is found in Cambridge in 1635,
where he was an active and energetic citizen.
Its next occupant was Jonathan Winship, Jr.,
who also carried on the farm. He contracted
for the supply of beef to the French fleet that
visited Boston shortly after the Revolutionary
War. The building at the right of the picture
was used by him as a store.
BRIGHTON IN THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 609
of the State Board of Health, and business began in June, 1873. The in-
vestment in this enterprise of half a million dollars, enabling its projectors
to improve in some respects upon the best foreign models, has completely
transformed what was once a most repulsive business and a nuisance to
everybody. Private slaughtering is prohibited in any section of the ward
under heavy penalties. The grounds of the Association are bounded by
Market Street and by Winship Avenue, with a frontage of about a thou-
sand feet on Charles River, by which sloops and schooners approach the
wharves which have been constructed on the territory. A branch of the
Boston and Albany Railroad enters the enclosure.
An annual cattle-show and exhibition of domestic manufactures and agri-
cultural products was established here in June, 1818, by the Massachusetts
Agricultural Society. Suitable buildings were erected on Winship Place,
Agricultural Hill. The fair was held in the month of October, and an annual
address, together with a public dinner, ploughing matches, and various other
exercises made the occasion one of great interest and enjoyment. Since
the establishment of the numerous county agricultural societies through-
out Massachusetts, this State exhibition has been abandoned. Agricultu-
ral Hall, the large building in which were held the indoor festivities of
the Brighton Fair, now does duty as a hotel on the corner of Chestnut-Hill
Avenue and Washington Street. The Cattle-Fair Hotel Corporation, estab-
lished in 1830, erected in that year their large and handsome building on
Market Square.
The first burial-ground in Brighton was laid out in Market Street, near the
old meeting-house, in 1764, — that of old Cambridge, opposite the College,
dating from 1635. This sufficed for the town until 1850, when it purchased
the beautiful, well-wooded tract of fourteen acres on South Street, known
as the Aspinwall Woods. The grounds were tastefully laid out and orna-
mented, and Evergreen Cemetery was publicly consecrated Aug. 7, 1850.
Its Egyptian gateway was modelled after the first in Mount Auburn, and is
appropriately inscribed. The monument of Holton, founder of the public
library, and many other memorials of the dead are here, and it is daily
becoming more and more attractive to the living.
At a town-meeting held April 24, 1865, only a few days after the surren-
der of Lee, it was voted to erect a monument to the Brighton soldiers who
had fallen in the war. A committee was appointed to raise the money by
voluntary subscriptions from each adult, and from each of the school chil-
dren in the town. The soldiers' monument in Evergreen Cemetery, one of
the first erected in the State, was dedicated July 26, 1866, in the presence
of Brighton's surviving soldiers. An address was made by Mr. Bickford,
chairman of the selectmen, the Rev. Frederic A. Whitney delivered the
oration, prayer was offered by the Rev. Ralph H. Bowles, and original
hymns by Anna H. Phillips and Dr. Augustus Mason were sung. The
monument is of Quincy granite, and is thirty feet in height. Upon a
VOL. in. — 77.
6lO THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
square base is placed a pyramidal plinth with inscriptions and names on
all sides. Above this is a square shaft with moulded base and capital,
upon the top of which is an eagle resting upon a ball. The die of the
shaft is decorated with a shield, with stars and flags.
Among the noted men of Brighton not previously mentioned are : Daniel
Bowen, who opened the first museum in Boston in 1791, owner of the fine
old mansion on Bowen Hill, where he carried on the art of printing as early
as 1802; Colonel Isaac Munroe, born here April 26, 1783, founder and
editor of the Baltimore Patriot, eminent in character as in journalism, and
who died Dec. 21, 1859; Rev. Titus Strong, D.D., author of many educa-
tional and theological works, forty years rector in Greenfield, Massachu-
setts, born in Brighton, Jan. 28, 1787; died June 11, 1855; Hon. Joseph
Adams Pond, who died president of the Massachusetts Senate, Oct. 28, 1867,
at the early age of forty; and Hon. Joseph Breck, florist and horticulturist,
president of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, and a State Senator,
who died June 14, 1873, aged 78.
In 1688 Brighton's population consisted of twenty-eight families and
thirty-five ratable polls. Her numbers at other periods have been as
follows : —
1749 .
290
1840 .
1425
1870 .
• 4967
1777 .
326
1850 .
2356
1875 .
. 6200
1810 .
608
1860 .
3375
1880 .
• 6693
1830 .
972
1865 .
3859
Her valuation in 1865 was $3,812,694; in 1873, $14,548,531, — nearly four
times as large. In 1865 the amount of capital invested in the three princi-
pal industries of Brighton was $390,942.
Besides the advantages she enjoys in common with the rest of the
metropolis, Brighton is said to take the lead of every other town in the
Commonwealth in the character of her roads, over which there is constant
pleasure travel from Boston proper. Especially is this the case with the
beautiful avenue surrounding the Cochituate Water Works at the Chestnut-
Hill Reservoir; and since the elimination of the unpleasant slaughter-house
odors that once pervaded her precincts, Brighton's many natural advan-
tages and picturesque situations have made her generally known as one
of the most attractive and desirable portions of the city for residences.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHELSEA, REVERE, AND WINTHROP, FROM THE CLOSE OF
THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
BY MELLEN CHAMBERLAIN,
Librarian of the Boston Public Library.
THE first volume of the Town Records of Chelsea ends with the year
1775, and the second opens with a transcript of the Declaration of
Independence and the appended order of the Council, dated July 17, 1776,
in which it was directed that the document should be printed and a copy
sent to the ministers of each parish of every denomination within the State,
to be read to their respective congregations at the close of divine service
on the afternoon of the first Lord's day after its receipt, and thereafter to be
delivered to the town clerk for record in the Town's Book, there to remain
as a perpetual memorial. This record is followed, however, by several
entries of an earlier date : —
"March 25, 1776. Voted, to choose a committee to estimate the damages the
town, or any particular person or persons, hath sustained by the king's troops, or by
part of the Continental army being stationed in said town.
"June 3, 1776. Voted, to instruct their representative, according to a Resolve of
the House passed May loth, that if the Honorable Congress should, for the safety of
the said Colonies, declare them independent of the kingdom of Great Britain, they, the
said inhabitants, will solemnly engage with their lives and fortunes to support them
in the measure.
" Nov. 25. Voted, that they would not give their consent that the present House
of Representatives of this State, together with the Council, should not ! enact any
form of government for this State. Also, voted, that they would choose a member for
that business."
At this period, and for many years later, the principal settlement at
Chelsea was within the present limits of Revere ; and Winnisimmet and
Pulling Point, as outlying districts, were obliged to clamor for their share
of the public money. They were heard at the town-meeting, March 18,
1777, when it was —
1 The patriotic and wise spirit of Phillips the Chelsea town records ; but apparently they
Payson is discernible in many votes entered on were seldom reduced to writing by himself. .
612 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
" Voted, That the school be kept in the Body of the Town y* whole of this present
year. Voted, to allow Winnisimet and Pulling Point their proportionable part of the
school money this present year, provided they lay it out in schooling of their Chil-
dren, and that their proportion of money be drafted out of the Town's Treasury for
the abov-said purpose."
The following votes, selected from many similar to be found in the Town
Records, show that the inhabitants of Chelsea, during the Revolutionary
period, were not without their share in the common anxiety, distress, and
sacrifices : —
" May 26, 1777. Voted, no person be allowed to sell any sheep's wool out of the
town till the inhabitants of the town be supplied with wool both for their own use and
for the use of the soldiers.
"March 30, 1778. Voted, not to allow of an Inoculating Hospital for the small-
pox to be set up in any house in the town of Chelsea.
"April 2, 1778. Voted, to draw money out of the town's treasury for to procure
shirts, stockings, and shoes for the use and benefit of the town's quota of soldiers who
are inlisted in the Continental army for three years, or during the war ; and that each
soldier be furnished with one shirt, one pair of stockings, and one pair of shoes, it
being agreeable to a Resolve of the General Court of this State.
" The constitution and form of government for the State of Massachusetts agreed
upon by the Convention of said State, Feb. 28, 1778, was read at this town-meeting
for the town's consideration, to be acted upon at some future meeting." And, " May
29, the vote was called to see if the town would act upon the constitution and form of
government ; and the town voted by yeas and nays, and the vote passed in the nega-
tive by a great majority of the voters present.
"April 8, 1778. Voted, to have a smoke-house, or room to smoke persons in, at
Winnisimmet Ferry, in order to prevent any person or persons coming out of the town
of Boston from spreading the small-pox in any town in the country.
" Voted, not to be at any cost or charge to hire any person or persons to tend said
smoke-house.
" Sept. 28, 1778. Voted, to give Lieut. Silas Clark the sum of eighty pounds, as a
present in time past, for the support of his family, as a Continental officer in the army,
considering the extraordinary price of the necessaries of life.
" Voted, to choose a committee of three persons to apply to the Great and Gen-
eral Court to get an abatement of Chelsea's State tax."
But notwithstanding their distress they voted, Dec. 17, 1778, to give to
the Rev. Mr. Phillips Payson the sum of six hundred pounds lawful money,
as a consideration for his support on account of the extraordinary prices of
the necessaries of life. This vote called forth an affectionate and touching
letter from their beloved pastor, which is entered on the records of the
town.
The formation of a State constitution engaged a share of their attention ;
and they voted, Aug. 2, 1779, and chose Captain Jonathan Green " a delegate
to meet at Cambridge, the first day of September next, in order to frame a
constitution, .or form .of government, agreeably to a resolve of the General
CHELSEA, REVERE, AND WINTHROP, ETC. 613
Court the fifteenth of June last past; " and at the same meeting they chose
Lieutenant Thomas Pratt, Samuel Sprague, and Joseph Green as a com-
mittee to instruct the town's delegate to the convention. It was also voted,
" that the committee of correspondence take care that the Articles of Con-
vention [respecting Burgoyne's army] be strictly complied with."
When the draft of the Constitution was laid before the people, May 9,
1780, a committee, of which Rev. Phillips Payson was chairman, was chosen
to consider the same and " make remarks." June I the town met, accord-
ing to the adjournment, and took up the business of the warrant : —
" Then voted to accept of the Declaration of Rights by yeas and nays, — eleven
yeas and one nay; with this amendment, — p. 12, article 16, add: 'But as its free-
dom is not such as to exempt the printer or printers from being answerable for false, de-
famatory, and abusive publication.' Voted, to accept the name of this Commonwealth,
— Massachusetts. Voted, to accept the form of government with the amendment, by yeas
and nays, — eleven yeas and one nay. Alterations and corrections in the form of govern-
ment : First, that all shall be voters for a Representative, Senators, Governor, etc., that
pay taxes and are twenty-one years of age. Secondly, that the words ' order ' and ' direct,'
in the paragraphs respecting the Governor and Council, be changed for the words
' consult ' and ' advise.' Thirdly, that the scheme of rotation be adopted in the prin-
cipal department of government. Fourthly, that the clergy be exempted from all
offices in the civil department. Fifthly, that in page 18, 1. 24, the words 'at the least '
be blotted out. Sixthly, that in page 22, add at the bottom, 'excepting vacancies by
the choice of councillors.' Seventhly, that no person shall be a member of Congress
for this State unless he possesses a right of freehold, an estate sufficient to qualify him
for a seat in the Senate double to a Senator. Eighthly, in page twenty, add, ' or in
the town clerk's absence, in the presence of the selectmen only.' Voted, if our dele-
gate, Capt. Jonathan Green, shall not be able to procure these alterations and correc-
tions, we leave it to his option to vote in Convention, by the best of his judgment,
either for or against [the] frame of Government that shall be finally obtained in the
honorable Convention, without referring of it again to the people at large."
At the town-meeting, Sept. 4, 1780, called to elect officers for the new
government, twenty votes were cast for John Hancock for governor, and
one for James Bowdoin. Benjamin Greenleaf had nineteen votes for the
office of lieut.-governor. Jonathan Green was the first representative to the
General Court under the Constitution.
But a change in the form of government did not bring about a change
in the circumstances of the people. The war continued, and it is piteous to
read the almost frantic, and sometimes ludicrous, efforts made by the town
to fill their quota. Some of the votes are as follows : —
"Jan. 4, 1781. Voted, raised, and granted the sum of twenty thousand pounds, to
be assessed on the polls and estates in the town of Chelsea, for the purchase of beef
for the army, agreeably to a Resolve of the General Assembly of this State.
" Then voted, raised, and granted one thousand Spanish mill dollars as a bounty to
eight soldiers that shall enlist into the Continental service for three years, or during
the war.
614 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
" Then voted to choose a committee of three persons to lay out said money in
hireing the eight soldiers as cheap as they could."
The meeting adjourned to the fifteenth, and thence to the twenty-ninth of
January, when they
" Voted, to give to eight soldiers that should enlist into the Continental service for
three years, or during the war, to have eight calves a-piece, raised and kept, and to be
delivered to each of them at the end of three years.
" Voted, that if the Committee should agree to give more than 1 25 dollars to any
other men, then the town voted to give Sam" Cheever more. The meeting then ad-
journed to Feb. yth, when it was decided to leave the hiring of soldiers with the
Committee to get them in the best manner they could, with stock or money."
The vote of the town for a bounty of too many calves of undiscriminated
sex, and too little money, seems to have failed of the desired effect, and led
to a special modification of terms on the first of March, as appears in the
following vote : —
" To give John Sack one Hundred Hard Dollars and four Hefer Calves, to be kept
and to be delivered to him at three years' old, for a Bounty for his Listing into the
Continental service for three years for the town of Chelsea, and to pay him down 70
Hard Dollars or the exchange, and the Remainder to be paid to him or his order
when call[ed] for by him."
This proposition appears to have been accepted, and led to certain votes
of the town three years later : —
" Jan. 1 7, 1 784. Voted, not to give John Syckes thirty Dollars in lieu of two of the
heifers that the town owe to him. Voted, to Reconsider said last vote relative to said
heffers. Voted, to give said John Syckes thirty Dollars in lieu of two of the heffers or
cows that the town of Chelsea owe to him. Voted, to raise thirty Dollars to pay to the
said John Syckes in lieu of said two cows or heffers that the town owe to him. Voted,
to raise thirty Dollars to pay for two cows for said John Syckes. Voted, to choose a
Committee to by said two cows."
As the war drew to a close, the financial difficulties of the town seemed
to increase. At the March meeting in 1781 it was voted to raise £11,836
to defray the town charges. This was in the depreciated currency of the
day, and seems not to have proved satisfactory; for in September of the
same year it was determined to raise £150 in gold and silver money, to be
assessed on the polls and estates. This sum, if raised, appears to have
been insufficient; for in the January following they voted twenty-five
dollars for the same purpose. But the vote was followed by this cry of
anguish: " Voted, that they think they are almost Duble taxed to other
adjasent towns ; " and they chose a committee to petition the General Court
for the abatement of the taxes. And this state of their affairs led them the
next year, July 22, 1783, to choose a committee of five, — of whom the Rev.
CHELSEA, REVERE, AND WINTHROP, ETC. 615
Phillips Payson was one, — to address the town of Boston on the subject of
reunion. But the citizens of that town evinced no more inclination to pay
the debts of Chelsea than have their unfeeling successors on two similar in-
vitations, now within legal memory.
"Jan. 3, 1782. The town voted to instruct their representative to do the best of
his abilities to retain the fishery to the Northern States, if there should be a treaty
for peace ; and
" May 12, 1783. That, in their opinion, it was utterly incompatible with the dig-
nity and safety of the Commonwealth, that any of those persons that justly come
under the denomination of Refugees should ever be admitted to the privilege of
citizenship among them ; and their representative was instructed to act in conformity
with this vote in the General Court."
Not long after the close of the war the people of Chelsea found them-
selves involved in a renewed contest for the estate of Governor Bellingham
at Winnisimmet, which had raged with varying fortunes for nearly thirty
years, and ended only in 1787 with the defeat of the town. This result
subjected the community to the expenses of a protracted law-suit, and also
to the necessity of accounting for the rents and profits of such parts of the
Bellingham estates as had been in their possession between 1776 and 1787.
The venerable Dr. Phillips' Payson died Jan. 11, 1801, and was succeeded
in the pastoral office by Rev. Joseph Tuckerman, who was ordained Nov. 4,
of the same year, and ministered to the people just a quarter of a century,
— preaching his farewell sermon Nov. 4, 1826. Dr. Tuckerman immedi-
ately began his service in the "Ministry at Large," in Boston, to which
place he soon removed with his family. He died at Havana, April 20,
1840, and his life and distinguished services were duly commemorated by
Dr. Channing in a discourse delivered Jan. 31, 1841.
For some years after 1830 Rumney Marsh, Pulling Point, and Winni-
simmet maintained their relative importance, — the principal settlement,
meeting-house, and town offices being at the first-named of these localities.
But the time was approaching when Winnisimmet, instead of being the
least in population and wealth, should become the greatest. For two hun-
dred years that precinct had consisted of four great farms, severally now
known by the names of their most recent individual proprietors, as the
Williams, Shurtleff, Cary, and Carter farms ; and the only houses at Win-
nisimmet— apart from those connected with the Ferry — were the mansions
and farm houses attached to these estates. In 1831 the Williams Farm,
with the Ferry franchise, was purchased by trustees, who in 1833 conveyed
their estate to the Winnisimmet Company, then recently incorporated.
This company became the owner of the Shurtleff Farm in 1835 ; and, by
the purchase of several lesser estates, were sole proprietors of a large and
compact territory which was carefully resurveyed in 1836, and divided into
house lots of convenient size. With increased ferry facilities and the sale
of these house lots, a considerable village rapidly grew up, which, March
6i6
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
19, 1846, became the town of Chelsea, — Rumney Marsh and Pulling Point
being erected into a separate town by the name of North Chelsea. These
were divided March 27, 1852, when Pulling Point was incorporated as the
town of Winthrop. Chelsea became a city March 13, 1857; a°d the name
of North Chelsea was changed to Revere, March 24, 1871.
Within a few years past Revere and Winthrop have attracted attention
as convenient and salubrious places for summer residence, and the locali-
ties of Ocean Spray and Beachmont, bordering on the sea, have grown into
considerable villages.
The relative growth of these towns between 1875 and 1880 will be
shown by the State and United States Census, respectively, of those years.
Chelses, 20,737; 21,785. Revere, 1,603; 2,263. Winthrop, 627; 1,043.
The construction of the Narrow-Gauge Railroad has contributed largely to
these results.
CHAPTER XX.
THE PRESS AND LITERATURE OF THE LAST HUNDRED
YEARS.
BY CHARLES A. CUMMINGS.
the five newspapers which were printed in Boston when the war of
the Revolution broke out, only two remained in existence at its close.
The Massachusetts Spy had been at once removed to the safer town of Wor-
cester, where it maintained an honorable and useful existence, not only
through the Revolutionary struggle, but continuing even to the present day.
The Boston Gazette alone from its old office hailed the return of peace, and
the triumph of the good cause which it had so bravely aided. Its chief
rival at this time was the Boston Chronicle, which had been established in
1776 by Powars & Willis as a weekly paper, which had been printed straight
through the war, and which found itself, when the war ended, dividing with
the Gazette such reputation and prosperity as the press of those days was
competent to achieve. Several competitors had indeed entered the field,
but none of them was able to keep itself alive for any considerable time.
The Independent Ledger, published on Mondays by Draper & Folsom, was
first issued June 15, 1778. Buckingham says, "The latest number of this
paper which I have seen is dated Dec. 29, 1783 ; whether it was continued
later I have not been able to ascertain." The partnership of Edes & Gill
having been dissolved, and the Boston Gazette remaining the property of
Edes, Gill began on May 30, 1776, a new weekly paper called the Continen-
tal Journal and Weekly Advertiser. Gill died in 1785, having previously
sold out his newspaper which apparently soon followed him. There was
also the American Herald, published for six or seven years previous to
1788 by Edward Eveleth Powars.
A more formidable competitor than these ephemeral sheets appeared
during the first year of peace, in The Massachusetts Centinel and Republican
Journal, published every Wednesday and Saturday by Warden & Russell
" at their office in Maryborough Street," and of which the first number ap-
peared on March 24, 1784. The long life of this celebrated newspaper; its
management for more than forty years by its original editor, Major Ben.
Russell ; and the vigor and constancy with which it maintained the principles
of public policy which were held by the great majority of well-to-do citizens
of Massachusetts and New England during these early years of the repub-
VOL. m. — 78.
618 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
ljc> — have made its name more famous than that of any of its numerous
contemporaries, from which, however, there was at first little either in its
appearance or its contents to distinguish it. Its size was, after the first two
years, the same as that of the other papers ; and the general aspect of its
columns, and the prevailing style of its articles, were not materially different.
It may then, since a detailed account of all these newspapers would be both
tedious and profitless, be taken as a fair specimen of what was in those
days regarded as a satisfactory newspaper. The first number contained
naturally the appeal of the publishers " To the candid Publick," ! which oc-
cupied the whole of the first page. The remainder was made up of an un-
important extract or two from " late London papers," the latest bearing
date three months back ; an official copy of a resolve passed by the Legis-
lature; a summary of domestic news, very barren indeed; " food for senti-
mentalists," being a moving history of a father rescued from impending ruin
by the devotion of a son ; a highly artificial poem on " The Newspaper ; " a
facetious anecdote ; a little shipping news ; and two advertisements, — one of
"Painters' Oils and Colors," by Grant & Dashwood, and another of spelling-
books, etc. by Warden & Russell. That is all. The remotest village in the
South or West would to-day throw aside such a newspaper as worthless.
Yet the publishers in their next issue find it difficult to express their grati-
tude for the extraordinary favor with which it has been received. " Our
hearty thanks but feebly speak the gratitude of our breasts. As a number
of our customers were disappointed in not receiving the first number (a
sufficiency not being printed to supply the demand), we shall as soon as
possible strike off a second edition. As we shall adorn the Centinel with
the most delicious sentimental sustenance we can obtain, as well the pro-
duction of our soil as exotick, those who would wish to be supplied with the
first numbers to bind up can thus be gratified."
1 After a high flight of rhetoric declaring cheaper than any other papers if the advantage of receiving
that the chief duty of the hour was to second the them twice in the week is considered.
, i ... i j i- , j , . i , 11 "The publishers engage to use every effort to obtain
cherub peace in shedding her delectable bles- .,
the most scrutinous circumspection in collecting whatever
sings over this New World," and that the surest may be Bought of public utility or private amusement.
way to accomplish this end, and at the same Variety shall be courted in all its shapes, —in the impor-
time " to obtain a competency for our support," 'ance of public information, in the sprightliness of mirth ;
was to set on foot "a Free, Uninfluenced News- in .the P1^"1 levity of 'Agination, in the just severity of
„ , . .. . , • i v. satire, in the vivacity of ridicule, in the luxuriance of poe-
paper, the publishers proceed with the prospec- tiy> and in ,he simp)-citv of truth We shall examine the
tUS of their undertaking, as follows : — regulations of office with candor, approve with pleasure, or
condemn with boldness. Uninfluenced by Party, we aim
CONDITIONS. , , . . .
only to pejust.
"i. This paper shall be printed with legible type on "The assistance of the learned, the judicious, and the cu-
good paper, to contain four quarto pages, demi. nous is solicited. Productions of public utility, however se-
"2. The price of this paper will be twelve shillings the vere, if consistent with truth shall be admitted, and the
year, one quarter to be paid on subscribing. If, agreeably modest correspondent may depend on the strictest secrecy,
to the custom in the cities of London, New York, & Phil- Reservoirs will be established in public houses for the re-
adelphia, the subscriber should choose to pay per num- ception ofinformation, whether foreign, local, or poetical,
ber, the price will be Two Pence. " Anxious to deserve, they hope a display of that patron-
"3. The papers in the town of Boston shall be delivered age and assistance which the people of these States are
to the Subscribers as early as possible on publication days. celebrated for bestowing on the efforts of young beginners.
" 4. Advertisements shall be inserted at as low a price as And finally, if their abilities be inadequate, it will at least
is demanded by any of their brethren in the art, and contin- be some recompense that such as they have shall be ex-
ued, if desired, in Six numbers. erted with candour."
"5. Gentlemen in the Country may be supplied with "W. WARDEN,
this Paper at the above price (postage excepted), which is " B. RUSSELL."
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 619
The Centinel was from the first peculiar in separating its contents under
various highly imaginative headings, which partook of the ambitious and
sophomoric flavor of most of the matter which appeared under them. Thus
the poetical corner, which was a constant feature of the paper, was headed
in the earliest numbers " Sentimental Repast." By the eighth number a
more elegant title had occurred to the editor. It was now called " The
Helicon Reservoir." Some weeks later this was again changed to " Senti-
mental Sustenance." Under this head the Deserted Village of Goldsmith was
published, running through a dozen numbers or so.1 The " Castalian Fount,"
1 But the poetry is not often of this order.
It is more commonly prefaced by a note like this :
" MESSRS PRINTERS, — Your admission of the fol-
lowing in the Centinel will implant an agreeable
sensation in the breast of a female reader." Then
follows a highly sentimental poem beginning,
620 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
and the " Cabinet of Apollo " were successively chosen to please the uneasy
and fastidious taste of the editor. Under the heading, " Entertainment for the
Disciples of Zeno," a department was established containing brief anecdotes,
in most of which it would be difficult to discover the qualities which distin-
guish the stoic philosophy. " Preparation for Sunday " was a department of
every Saturday's issue, containing some short extract from a religious book
or a sermon. In time the editor, becoming dissatisfied with this heading,
made this announcement: "As under that head the great and important
subject is too much circumscribed, we propose continuing to teach the prin-
ciples of piety and morality under the title of 'The Moral Entertainer,' and
we hope much benefit may be derived therefrom."
It is quite clear from a glance at these early numbers of the Centinel that
no reason existed in the nature of things for the establishment of such a
newspaper. If newspapers, are indeed the mirror of the times which pro-
duce them, how portentous was the dulness of this little town ! The excite-
ment of the Revolution had died away, leaving a reaction in which the ex-
haustion consequent on a war in which the whole people had engaged, was
not mitigated by the abundant resources or the varied opportunities of a
great people. The Province no longer existed ; the Nation was not yet
created. Trade was prostrate ; manufactures were not yet dreamed of; com-
munication was slow and for half the year difficult. A sort of apathy
seemed for the moment to possess the minds of the people. These were
not the conditions under which a newspaper was likely to make itself either
interesting or useful. For the first two years accordingly the Centinel strug-
gled for existence ; and the same may perhaps he said of its contemporaries.
The political questions which a few years later were to divide the people
into parties had not yet arisen, and the occasions for newspaper comment or
criticism on public affairs were extremely infrequent. A gentle breeze of
interest can be seen now and then to have moved over the slumberous sur-
face of Boston life. During this first year a sort of social club, composed
of ladies and gentlemen of good position in society, was holding what were
called " tea assemblies " at stated intervals at Concert Hall,1 at which the
entertainment was made up of " music, dancing, tea, coffee, chocolate,
cards, wine, negus, punch, and lemonade." A severe writer in the Centinel,
signing himself " Observer," took occasion to criticise without reserve the
proceedings and manners of this club, — of which the name, " Sans Souci, or
Free and Easy," did, it must be confessed, rather invite remark, — declaring
that it was " an assembly totally repugnant to virtue, .... throwing aside
every necessary restraint ; those being esteemed the politest who are the
most careless," etc. In the same issue of the paper an advertisement ap-
peared to this effect : " A new Farce. On Monday next will be published
— " When Damon asked me for a kiss," etc., the obscurity in which the timidity of female
and signed " Clorinda." To which the gallant delicacy would shelter itself, and to animate the
editor appends this approving note : " Clorinda female breast to catch at the laurels due to their
has our hearty thanks for this effusion of her vivacity and their merits."
pen. It is our wish to rescue the fair sex from J [See Vol. II. p. xvii. — ED.]
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 621
' Sans Souci, alias Free and Easy, or an Evening's Peep into a Polite Circle.'
An entire new entertainment in three acts." In the next number of the Centi-
nel the editor takes occasion to state that he has been called upon by Mr. Sam-
uel Jarvis, a member of the Sans Sonet, and assaulted. This is the oppor-
tunity for a long and rhetorical article, occupying nearly the whole paper, on
the enormity of this " infringement of the liberty of the press," and the in-
flexible determination of the injured editor to maintain the position of the
Cenlinel as " a Free, Uninfluenced Newspaper, in spite of the threats of
sanguinary assassins." The quarrel is taken up by the other newspapers,
and communications on both sides are rained upon the fortunate public
for some weeks.
A more reasonable excitement was occasioned a little later by the visit of
several foreign agents or factors, chiefly from New Brunswick and Nova
Scotia, selling the goods of English merchants and manufacturers. Not only
the patriotism but the business instincts of the town took offence at this new
and most unwelcome enterprise. The indignation and alarm grew the more
rapidly, perhaps, from the absence of any law which could be invoked to
abate the nuisance ; until at length the inflammatory writing in the news-
papers culminated in an excited public meeting in Faneuil Hall, at which
the merchants and traders pledged themselves to have no dealings with the
offensive strangers. The proposal to restore the Tory refugees in the Pro-
vinces and elsewhere to their rights as citizens of the United States, excited
almost as much anger and alarm as the visits of the factors, and with less
excuse.
The watchful jealousy of a people which had but just freed themselves
from the restraints and vexations of arbitrary and aristocratic rule, was quick
to take alarm at dangers which from our safe distance seem most trivial.
The institution of the Cincinnati seems to us as innocent of harm as any
association of gentlemen united by community of patriotic memories and
associations could well be. Grave danger was, however, at its inception
perceived to lurk under this dignified organization, and some of the news-
papers, among which the Chronicle was the most emphatic, attacked the
society with violence. " The institution of the Cincinnati," said one of the
correspondents of the Chronicle, " is designed to establish a complete and
permanent personal distinction between the numerous military dignitaries of
their corporation and the whole remaining body of the people, who will be
styled Plebeians through the community." These sentiments were shared
by the people to such an extent that the citizens of Cambridge, by a vote
in town-meeting, instructed their representative in the Legislature to use
his best influence to insure the suppression of this society. The Centinel
poured oil on the waters by reminding the alarmists " that his Excellency,
George Washington, Esq., is president of that society, — a circumstance
that greatly recommends it."
The Legislature of 1785 passed an act laying a duty of two thirds of a
penny upon every newspaper, and a penny on almanacs, all of which were
622 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
to be stamped. The words " stamp act " had a horrid sound in the ears of
the men of the Revolution, and so violent an opposition to the proposed
tax was excited throughout the State that the act was repealed during the
same session, and another was substituted laying a duty on all advertise-
ments,— sixpence on each insertion. This was not, in general, much more
favorably received, though the Centinel, perhaps because its advertisements
were then extremely few, excused the new tax on the ground that it " con-
tributed thousands to the exigencies of the State." ' The Centinel was in-
creased in size at the end of the second year, but the conduct of the paper
showed no essential improvement. The matter was still trivial. The style
was still ambitious and uneasy. The communications, for the most part
under grotesque and affected signatures, — as Tantarabogus, Desideratum,
Whackum, Whackum Secundus, Moralibus, Mulier, Slap-dash, Publicola,
Agricola, and the like, — are generally marked by turgid and pompous
rhetoric, savage and brutal personal abuse, and ridiculous attempts at satire,
— almost never by calm discussion of any subject.
During the first months of 1787 we find some lively accounts of the
progress and ignominious collapse of Shays' Rebellion ; and later in the
same year interesting reports of the proceedings of the convention in Phila-
delphia for the adoption of the Federal Constitution. In January of the
next year the Massachusetts convention for ratifying the Constitution was
held in the meeting-house in Long Lane, and Mr. Russell then made what
was probably the first systematic attempt at reporting for any Boston news-
paper. The speeches seem to have been, on the whole, very well reported,
and the proceedings filled the greater part of every issue of the paper for
four weeks. An amusing tribute occurs at the close of one of the reports.
" We came in," says the editor, " while the Hon. Judge Dana was speaking ;
but captivated by the fire, the pathos, and the superior eloquence of his
speech, we forgot we came to take minutes, and thought to hear alone was
our duty. Our memory will not enable us to do it justice, but we shall
attempt a feeble sketch of it."2
1 The Boston Gazette thus complained of the ness and afflictions of Human Life, illustrated ; '
burden of the tax, and thus evaded it : — for, the price of said book being but eight pence,
" While the newspapers of other States are it will take away the profits of too many, and
crowded with advertisements (free of duty) those perhaps encourage government to continue this
of this State are almost destitute thereof, which burthen." — Buckingham's Specimens of News-
justly occasions the oppressed printers of those paper Literature.
shackled presses to make their separate com- 2 In a memorandum quoted by Buckingham
plaints, as many do, owing to their being pro- (vol. ii. p. 49), Russell says: —
hibited advertising in their own papers their own " I had never studied stenography, nor was
books and stationery, without incurring a pen- there any person then in Boston who understood
alty therefor. We, for the same reason that our reporting. The presiding officer of the conven-
brother typographers use, forbear publishing that tion sat in the deacon's seat under the pulpit. I
Bibles, Testaments, Psalters, Spelling-books, took the pulpit for my reporting desk, and a very
Primers, Almanacks, &c., besides Stationery and good one it was. I succeeded well enough in
all kinds of blanks, may be had at No. 42 Cornhill. this, my first effort, to give a tolerably fair report
The duty on advertisements also prevents our in my next paper ; but the puritanical notions
publishing that we have lately reprinted an ex- had not entirely faded away, and I was voted out
cellent Moral Discourse, entitled ' The Short- of the pulpit. A stand was fitted up for me in
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 623
Russell's enthusiasm for the new Constitution, and for the " more perfect
union " of States which it secured, was strong and enduring, and was the
foundation of the steady improvement which may be observed in the Centinel
from this time onward, and of the full measure of success which followed it.
The other papers hailed the new birth of the nation, as in duty bound, with
more or less of cordiality ; but the steady development of national feeling,
the steady consolidation of national power, was not witnessed by all with
the same pride and confidence. So long as the issue of the Revolutionary
struggle remained undetermined, the press of the country was united by
one controlling sentiment, — hatred of Great Britain ; and by one controlling
purpose, — the successful termination of the war. When the stress of the
exigency was past, and the war itself began to recede from men's thoughts,
this harmony was disturbed, and the passions and prejudices of men grew
more and more fruitful with every year. The separation into parties was
not fully accomplished until Washington had retired from public life ; but
it was already beginning as early as the adoption of the Federal compact,
and a man was on one side or another, according as his political sympathies
inclined him towards England or France. The frightful, spectacle of the
French Revolution was now about opening. A considerable portion of the
press of the United States followed and recorded its excesses with approval
and even with admiration, as inspired by the same love of liberty which had
just triumphed on this side the ocean.1 This was the beginning of the
Republican party, which a little later was compacted by a real or pretended
fear of centralization and monarchy, as the natural outgrowth of the new
Constitution. The Federalists were accused of ingratitude towards France
and of subserviency to Great Britain ; and the Federal leaders of cherishing
aristocratic and monarchical ideas. The Boston Gazette, still managed by
Benjamin Edes, was perhaps the most ardent friend of the French Revolu-
tion, and the most strenuous opponent of the Federal Constitution and the
leaders of the Federal party. The Chronicle, less pronounced in its oppo-
sition to the Constitution, became not less violent in its abuse of the Federal
administration. Its opposition to the Alien and Sedition laws, passed by
Congress in 1798, was so violent as to cause the arrest of the editor and his
trial. But neither party held the monopoly of violence. Frantic vitupera-
tion is the most common characteristic of the political communications in
most of the newspapers of the time.2 Such flowers of rhetoric as " native
another place, and I proceeded with my report- 2 As early as 1782, Franklin, writing from
ing." [See Mr. Lodge's chapter in this volume. Passy to Francis Hopkinson, says: —
— ED.] " You do well to avoid being concerned in the
1 Cobbett said in 1796 : " There is not a single species of personal abuse, so scandalously corn-
action of the French Revolutionists but has been mon in our newspapers that I am afraid to lend
justified and applauded in our public papers, one of them here until I have examined and laid
and many of them in our public assemblies, aside such as would disgrace us, and subject us
Anarchy has its open advocates. It is a truth among strangers to a reflection like that used by
that no one will deny, that the newspapers of a gentleman in a coffee-house to two quarrellers,
this country have become its scourge." — Porcu- who, after a. mutually free use of the words
pine's Works, ii. 223. 'rogue,' 'villain,' 'rascal, "scoundrel, 'etc., seemed
624 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
blackguardism," "spurious exotic," "quill-driving animal," "Jacobin ver-
min," " mud, filth, and venom," " diabolical malice," and the like flourish on
every page. In spite, however, of this ugly feature, the improvement in
the general conduct of the principal papers was marked and steady. The
march of events, both at home and abroad, was too imposing to permit the
editors to limit their interest and attention to the trivial and personal details
which had formerly absorbed them. The foreign intelligence was now
received with greater regularity and frequency, and became an important
feature of all the newspapers. Russell's enterprise was conspicuous both in
collecting this intelligence and in digesting it for publication. He had the
habit of visiting all vessels, on their arrival from foreign ports, to procure
the latest news. At the office of the Centinel regular files of the Moniteur
were kept, which brought Talleyrand and Louis Phillippe as frequent visi-
tors to the office during their stay in Boston. A gold snuff-box from the
former and an atlas from the latter were memorials long preserved by the
editor ; and one of them, at least, was of constant service in preparing his
summaries of the military news from the Continent. The proceedings and
laws of Congress ! and of the State Legislature, reports of the meetings of
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an occasional debate in Parlia-
ment, and more frequent and copious intelligence from other American
cities mark the steady growth of the newspaper in importance and interest.
The Boston Gazette expired in 1798. It was the last newspaper which
went back to the days preceding the Revolution ; and its venerable editor,
Benjamin Edes, took leave of the public in a pathetic if somewhat high-
flown farewell address. Its place as the ultra-Republican organ (the Chron-
icle being generally regarded by the more violent Republicans as not quite
pronounced enough in its hostility to the Federalists) was filled the next
year by a new paper, the Constitutional Telegraphs ; which, however, unable
to show any reason for its existence, lasted but about three years, its editor
following the example of Edes with a farewell address dated " Boston Gaol,
March 30, iQth day of imprisonment," having been condemned to a deten-
tion of three months for a libel on one of the judges of the Supreme Court.
The Telegraphe was but one of several papers which the ill-considered en-
thusiasm of political parties set on foot in the last years of the century, which
as if they would refer their dispute to him. ' I of the government were accordingly transmitted
know nothing of you or your affairs,' said he ; to him and were published ' by authority.' At
'/ only perceive that you know one another ! ' " the end of several years he was called upon for
Franklin's Works, x. 461. his bill. It was made out and, in compliance
1 Concerning the publication by the Centinel with the pledge, was receipted. On being in-
of the laws of Congress, Buckingham has the formed of the fact, General Washington said :
following, which is creditable alike to the printer 'This must not be. When Mr. Russell offered
and the government : — to publish the laws without pay, we were poor.
" While Congress was holding its first session, It was a generous offer. We are now able to
Russell wrote to the department of state and pay our debts. This is a debt of honor, and
offered to publish gratuitously all the laws and must be discharged.' A few days after, Mr.
other official documents, the country being then Russell received a check for $7,000, the full
almost or quite bankrupt. All laws and other amount of his bill." — Specimens of Newspaper
papers emanating from the various departments Literature, ii. 59.
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 625
lived a few months or a few years, and died leaving no sign. One of these,
the Federal Orrery, established in 1794 by Thomas Paine, — an enthusiastic
young Federalist just graduated from Cambridge, from whose accomplish-
ments much was expected, — created a temporary excitement in Boston by a
series of papers entitled " Remarks on the Jacobiniad," in which an imagi-
nary poem was reviewed, with extracts, accompanied by satirical criticisms
on prominent Republicans. Paine was assaulted in State Street for the
publication of these papers, which were attributed — whether rightly or not
is, we believe, not known — to the Rev. J. S. J. Gardiner, assistant rector of
Trinity Church, who was attacked without mercy in the columns of the
Chronicle and the Gazette. Paine was of an expansive literary turn, and by
no means confined himself to his newspaper. His patriotic songs achieved
a national reputation, and yielded extraordinary sums to their author, sums
unexampled in that day and for many a day after. The most famous of
these was "Adams and Liberty," — a flamboyant lyric in ten verses in the
metre of the " Star Spangled Banner," written at the request of the Massa-
chusetts Charitable Fire Society, and from .the sale of which Paine is said
to have received more than $750. Perhaps even more remarkable was the
popularity of a poem in the heroic metre, delivered before the Phi Beta
Kappa Society in 1797, which is declared to have brought its author not
less than $1,200.
Russell's Gazette was a semi-weekly newspaper established in 1795,
strongly Federalist, and a ferocious enemy of France, Jefferson, and the
Republican newspapers. It had also its special vanity as an elegant critic
and patron of the theatre, then newly established in Boston. Under one
ownership and another it survived as late as 1830, always holding its place
as a prominent and influential journal.
Another newspaper of much influence at this time was the Massachusetts
Mercury, established in 1793 by Young & Etheridge; better known by its
later title of the Palladium, adopted in 1801, when it passed under the con-
trol of Warren Button as editor, and became the vehicle through which
some of the ablest writers of the Federal party addressed the public. Con-
spicuous among these writers was Fisher Ames, whose contributions were
frequent through all the years which intervened between his retirement
from public life and his death in 1808.
With the election of Jefferson in 1800 the strife between the two parties
took new vigor and fiercer hatred. The history of the newspaper press for
the next fifteen years is the history of this strife, and of the suspicions and
slanders, the accusations and retorts, of the chiefs of the hostile camps.1
1 John Adams, writing from Quincy, in 1811, Jones much in the same spirit, but with even
to Benjamin Rush, says: — "If I am to judge stronger disgust :" I deplore with you the putrid
by the newspapers and pamphlets that have state into which our newspapers have passed, and
been published in America for twenty years the malignity, the vulgarity, and the mendacious
past, I should think that both parties believed spirit of those who write for them ; and I en-
me the meanest villain in the world." ( Works, close you a recent sample, the production of a
ix. 636.) And Jefferson writes to Dr. Walter New England judge, as a proof of the abyss of
VOL. III. — 79.
626 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Probably there never was a time in any country when the newspapers of a
single small town were enriched with the political contributions of such a
number of men of undisputed ability, force of character, and patriotism.
Fisher Ames in the Palladium, James Sullivan in the Chronicle, George
Cabot in the Centinel, J. Q. Adams, Christopher Gore, John Lowell, Timothy
Pickering, Levi Lincoln, William Plumer, and many more of the foremost
men of an age rich in political vigor continued to fill the newspapers with
those unique compositions, half essay, half harangue, which exerted an in-
calculable influence in holding the people of Massachusetts and New England
to the losing cause of the party whose sun had set when the administration
of John Adams came to an end.
The writers of the Ccntinel opposed without discrimination every meas-
ure of importance originating with the administrations of Jefferson and
Madison. The embargo was characterized as " a bold stroke to starve a
people into democracy." The war with Great Britain was declared to be
carried on " to afford encouragement to British, Irish, and Jersey runaway
sailors to enter on board American vessels, and then to be PROTECTED
while they are underworking the native-born American seamen and nav-
igators, and thereby taking the bread from the mouths of their wives and
children. This is the great object of this war."
Whatever may have been the object of the war, there can be at the pres-
ent day no doubt that one of its most marked results was the extinction of
the absurd jealousies and hatreds of the past twenty years, the union of the
best men of both parties in the support of Monroe, and the inauguration of
the " era of good feeling," — a phrase, by the way, which Russell first used
on the occasion of the President's visit to Boston in 1817.
That the asperities of party politics had been the meat and drink of the
two great party newspapers it would perhaps be too much to say, but the
Chronicle survived the reconciliation only two years. In 1819 it was sold
to the owners of the Boston Patriot, and united with that paper. It had
managed to live for fifty years, and its influence had been very great. Its
great antagonist, the Ccntinel, was also growing rusty with age and peace, but
held out yet another ten years under Russell's management, though in a vis-
ibly declining condition; until in 1828 it was sold to Adams & Hudson,
who published it until 1840, when it was purchased by the proprietors of the
Daily Advertiser, and was heard of no more. The day of personal news-
papers was passing away. While the matter which filled them was small in
amount and of no great variety, they were managed without much difficulty
by a single editor, who was to all intents and purposes the newspaper. With
the growth of business and population, the enlargement of the life of the town,
and the multiplication of interests and of topics, the simplicity of such news-
paper work became obsolete. In these vastly changed conditions, also, the
degradation into which we are fallen. As a by forfeiting all title to belief." — Works, iv. 234.
vehicle of information and a curb on our func- [See further, on these political antagonisms,
tionaries, they have rendered themselves useless Mr. Lodge's chapter in this volume. — ED.]
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 627
semi-weekly issue became inadequate to the needs of the business world ; but
it was curiously long before a daily newspaper found a footing in Boston. At-
tempts were made in this direction as early as 1796 and 1798. The Polar
Star and Boston Daily Advertiser appeared in the former year, and the Fed-
eral Gazette and Daily Advertiser in the latter. The one lived six months,
the other three. Boston was for once far behind her sister cities in enter-
prise. The American Daily Advertiser had been established in Philadelphia
as early as 1784, and the New York Daily Advertiser the next year; but
it was not until 1813 that the first daily made good its claim to existence in
Boston. The Boston Daily Advertiser, of which the first number appeared
on March 3 of that year, was published by W. W. Clapp, and edited by
Horatio Bigelow, who says in his salutatory that the city of New York is
now supporting, " besides monthly, weekly, and semi-weekly publications,
eight daily newspapers." It was not surprising that the commercial needs
of a rapidly growing port like Boston should require a daily newspaper, and
the space occupied by advertisements from the first number attests the rea-
sonableness of the new undertaking. Mr. Bigelow remained the editor
scarcely more than a year. On the 6th of April, 1814, the paper passed
from his hands into those of Nathan Hale, whose conspicuous ability,
energy, good judgment, and good taste rapidly raised the Advertiser to a
high rank among the leading newspapers of the country.
Mr. Hale's introduction of himself upon taking charge of the Advertiser
was interesting as showing his sense of the inadequacy of the newspapers
of that day, and of the responsibility justly attaching to an editor.1 It was
plain, explicit, modest, and manly. He lived to make good all that he un-
dertook. From the first number the Advertiser was distinguished by brief
comments on prominent topics, having a candid and manly air, and always
temperate and just. From these grew the regular " leaders," more full and
more considered year by year, which mark the advance from the newspapers
of the earlier days, whose commentaries were communicated by writers not
connected with the publication, and partook too commonly of the nature of
personal criticism.
From the establishment of the morning daily, the old semi-weekly papers
became more and more obsolete. The Chronicle, the Gazette, the Palladium,
1 "Almost the total amount," he says, "of eralism of the Boston stamp have any distin-
the reading of at least one half the people guishing marks, his is certainly of that impression,
of this country, and a great part of the reading Such is his acquaintance with the character, mo-
of a large portion of the other half, is from the tives, and wishes of the leading Federalist men,
daily or weekly newspapers of the country, in New England in particular, that he places in
Many of these readers rely solely upon the them an unlimited confidence." He hopes to be
amount offered by a single paper. . . . Thus it able to satisfy the expectations of his readers in
is manifest that the office of an editor is one of the matter of news, both foreign and domestic,
great importance and responsibility ; and accord- as soon as he has become more familiar with the
ingly we find that if we have any striking traits sources of intelligence and the means of collect-
of national character, their origin may be clearly ing it. He promises to care for the mercantile
discerned in our universal relish for newspaper interests of his readers, knowing that he must
reading, and in the general character of the depend chiefly on merchants and traders for
newspaper which we read." He declares simply support. [See a further account of Mr. Hale in
and frankly that "he is a Federalist; and if Fed- Mr. Adams's chapter in Vol. IV. — ED.]
628 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF- BOSTON.
and finally the Centinel itself were successively absorbed by the Advertiser.
Repeated enlargements in the size of the sheet were accompanied by corre-
sponding expansion of its work and of its circulation.
The Advertiser, as Mr. Hale recognized, was essentially a business paper.
Of its twenty-four columns frequently only two or three, seldom more than
five, were given to what is known as reading matter. No notice was taken
of theatres or concerts, though these were duly advertised in its columns.
There were no book notices, and no correspondence either foreign or do-
mestic. Literature and art were alike ignored. As late even as 1833, when
Charles Kemble and his brilliant daughter played their first engagement in
Boston, the Advertiser 's account of their first performances was limited
to a single paragraph.1
On the other hand the political complexion of the paper was marked
and distinct from the outset, and grew more and more emphatic as the issues
between the Whig and Democratic parties became more clearly defined.
It was a loyal and steadfast adherent of Webster, not only as the great ex-
ponent of Whig principles and Whig policy, but also during and after the
embittered quarrel in which the splendid prestige of Webster was set against
the growing and deepening public sentiment of New England and the North,
and which left that great man without the support and without the confi-
dence of the great body of his constituents.
The Advertiser was for eleven years the only daily paper published in
Boston. But in 1824 Mr. Joseph Tinker Buckingham, who had for some
years been the editor, as he was the founder, of the Nezv England Galaxy,
established a new daily, called the Boston Courier? of which the only pro-
nounced political principle was at first the necessity for a protective tariff,
but which soon grew to be a very prominent and influential organ of the
Whig party, and of its foremost statesman, Daniel Webster. More vivacious
and discursive than the Advertiser ; more hospitable to the ideas and the
schemes of social and political reformers, and less exclusively devoted to the
mercantile interests of the city, — its columns were frequently enriched with
purely literary contributions from authors whose names have since become
widely known. Its careful notices of new books and of theatrical perform-
ances, and its entertaining Washington correspondence were features then
1 "Mr. Kemble appeared in Hamlet on 2 "The first number was issued on March 2,
Monday evening. His acting is chaste and dig- 1824, with the encouragement of less than two
nificd, and made a strong impression on his audi- hundred subscribers. There was then one daily
ence. Last evening Miss Kemble appeared in the paper in the city, and the attempt to establish
character of Bianca in the tragedy of Fazio, another was thought to be a reckless experi-
and was enthusiastically received by a very ment." — Buckingham's Personal Memoirs, and
crowded house. Mr. Kemble sustained that of Recollections of Editorial Life (Boston : 1852), ii.
Fazio with much power." p. 217.
THE PRESS, ETC., QF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 629
of rare occurrence in any newspaper. It partook of the personal character
and temperament of its founder and manager in much the same way that the
Centinel had done a generation before, and was perhaps the last of the Bos-
ton newspapers which can be said to have exhibited this peculiarity. As
the organization of a newspaper grows more complex, and calls for the labor
and supervision of a larger corps of writers, it is as inevitable as it is desira-
ble that the personality of the individual editor should disappear and be
replaced by that of the journal. Mr. Buckingham retired from the manage-
ment of the Courier in 1848, having been for thirty years one of the most
conspicuous figures in the literary history of the city.
The increasing importance and population of Boston about the year 1830
greatly stimulated the creation of 'daily newspapers. The Boston Post was
established in 1831 as a Democratic organ, and has continued to this day
faithful to the varying fortunes of the Democratic party. The next year the
two Whig papers were reinforced by a third, the Boston Atlas, which became
a more pronounced organ than either the Advertiser or the Courier ; and
which, for twenty-five years not less constant in its party fealty than its con-
temporary and adversary the Post, did not long survive the dissolution of
the Whig party. These were years when the political behavior of the people
was not such as can be now looked back upon with complacency. It was
with extreme slowness and reluctance that men were brought to acknowledge
that anything was of more importance to the well-being of the nation than
tariffs and cotton-mills and the protection of slave property. The party press
did not help them to learn the lesson, and did its best, as must now be owned,
to oppose and countervail the irresistible march of ideas and events which was
pressing the nation swiftly to the crisis.1 When the crisis had once arrived,
and all the lesser doubts and tremors, the hopes of compromise, the depre-
cation of imprudent zeal, the pledges of this or that candidate, the defection
of this or that place-holder ; all the calculations, in short, of the political
chess-board, were forgotten in face of the tremendous exigency, — the news-
papers of Boston, like those of other cities, rose with the occasion ; and,
apart from a few disgraceful exceptions which need not be remembered
here, served a nobler purpose in compacting and expressing the popular
sentiment and will, and in strengthening the hands of the Government. The
stimulus of the Civil War enlarged the scope of the great newspapers to a
prodigious extent. The arrangements for the receipt of intelligence by
telegraph were perfected by the Associated Press to a degree which would
have been more gratifying had there been less frequent cause for suspecting
the accuracy of the information. The multiplication of correspondents at
important points; the necessity for detailed reports of everything said or
done, or written or sung ; the growth of the habit of " interviewing " any per-
sonage possessing even a momentary importance in the public eye, — do but
indicate a few of the many directions in which the attention of newspaper
managers must now be turned.
1 [See James Freeman Clarke's chapter in the present volume. — ED.]
630 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Of the evening dailies the Transcript, established in 1830, and the Jour-
nal, in 1833, were the earliest. These were not political newspapers, but
made themselves first of all purveyors of news, pure and simple, — the first
named, which was for a while in the editorial charge of Epes Sargent, add-
ing to this a certain distinction, maintained to the present day, as a dis-
penser of light and lively gossip and small-talk. Avoiding topics of weight
upon which opinions were earnest, its many contributors amused their
•\ readers with harmless questions
°^ fasmon» °f t^ie weather, of the
theatre, with watering-place cor-
/~ s respondence, and copies of verses.
£/ More earnest matters mingled
with all this, as the years went on and public affairs grew ever graver.
The Boston Traveller was published as a weekly paper as early as 1825.
In 1845 it became a daily, and completed the list of established and
permanent daily newspapers of reputation. The growth of the penny
press dates from about this time. The cheap dailies rapidly multiplied ;
and the Herald, Times, Bee, Mail, and others of the same stamp, substan-
tially alike in their appearance and in the matter which filled their col-
umns, found a large though fluctuating circulation. They were, however,
in their nature ephemeral, and disappeared one after another, — with the ex-
ception of the Times, which was kept alive for twenty years, and the Herald,
which maintained its ground with even greater persistency, until, reinforced a
dozen years ago in capital, intelligence, and character, but retaining still the
characteristics which secure to the cheap newspaper its wide distribution, it
has taken a more and more influential position among the dailies of the city.
For good or for evil, the newspaper press of the United States has at-
tained an importance and an influence unparalleled in any other country.
Nowhere else does the number of newspapers bear so large a proportion to
the population,1 nowhere else are the newspapers so universally read. If it
must be added that nowhere else is the standard of veracity, of public
morality, and of decency — as exhibited in the general tone of the newspaper
press — so debased, we may at least qualify the charge in a way which twenty
years ago would have been impossible, by saying that a marked improve-
ment is to be observed in every one of these respects.2 The purification of
1 As early as 1841, the number of newspapers of journalism. Smaller editors in smaller cities
in the United States exceeded the number in all emulated its cynicism, its ribaldry, its abuse of
the countries of Europe with two hundred and the best men, its complicity with the worst ; and
thirty-three millions of population. Journal of found their account in such a course. The New
Statistical Society, of London, vol. iv. York Herald oi to-day is a respectable and use-
2 To take a single but most conspicuous ex- ful newspaper, conducted with all its old enter-
ample, — for a dozen years preceding the outbreak prise and ability, and doubtless more prosper-
of the Rebellion the debasing influence of the ous than at any previous period of its career;
New York Herald upon the people of the coun- and it would probably be impossible now to
try was to be measured not alone by its enor- find in the country any example of the same
mous circulation, but also by the example it contempt of decency and moral principle which
offered to the managers of all other newspapers conferred such bad eminence upon it a gener-
as the most successful enterprise in the history ation ago.
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 631
the political atmosphere, brought about by the war of the Rebellion, has
produced no more extraordinary or encouraging result than this ameliora-
tion of the newspaper press. To say that it is not yet the leader in morals
or politics, is simply to say that newspapers are business enterprises, depend-
ing for their success on the favor and patronage of their readers. When the
newspapers of the country shall be seen to reflect the instincts and princi-
ples and opinions of the best classes of the population, they will constitute
the most powerful and efficient force in correcting that tendency to a " lev-
elling downward," which one of the most intelligent and friendly of our
foreign critics has pointed out as among the most dangerous traits of the
American people.
The weekly newspapers, of which the name is legion, stand on a quite dif-
ferent footing from the dailies. In the important matter of news, and the
expression of critical opinions on current events, political or other, they
can of course not attempt to rival the daily sheets. They are, therefore, for
the most part either devoted to the interests of a special class, profes-
sional, religious, or philanthropic ; or else to the dissemination of society
gossip, or literary contributions from correspondents, and selections from
books, magazines, and such other sources as may be open to the editor.
The earliest of the modern Boston weeklies belonged to the latter category.
Of these the most conspicuous was the New England Galaxy, established
in 1817 by Joseph T. Buckingham, and conducted by him until 1828
with great vigor and success. The Galaxy had at the outset its own speci-
alty, indicated by its sub-
title, the Masonic Magazine.
This was, however, made
small account of after the
first few numbers, and the
paper soon made itself felt
in the little community by the variety and occasional brilliancy of its
literary contributions, and still more by the sharpness of its comments on
whatever might be for the moment the subject of popular attention. For
several years Mr. Buckingham was not without one or more libel suits on
his hands, the result of his indiscreet vivacity in personal criticism. The
number of contributors he was enabled to rely on gave great variety to the
pages of the Galaxy, especially in its earlier years.
The Saturday Evening Gazette, established in the same year with
the Advertiser, was, like the Galaxy, a vehicle for the lighter news and
gossip of the day ; but it was not illuminated by the vivacity and individ-
ual energy which gave interest to the older sheet. Issued nominally on
Saturday evening, it has always been distributed on Sunday morning, and
has probably owed to this circumstance its long and prosperous existence,
which still continues.
On the first of January, 1831, appeared the first number of what may now
be regarded as, in its history, characteristics, and influence, one of the most
632 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
remarkable newspapers ever printed. The Liberator was, from its inception
to its close, — a period of thirty-five years, — substantially the work of a
single man ; and there is no more impressive example, in the history of jour-
nalism, of an inflexible purpose pursued for a full generation with zeal -which
never flagged, with courage which never flinched, with steadiness which never
wavered. The first intention of Mr. Garrison was to publish his paper in
the city of Washington. From this purpose he was dissuaded by his friends,
who convinced him that in such a war as he was entering on his chances of
success — slender enough at the best — would be reduced to nothing if he
stationed himself within the lines of the enemy. He therefore on New
Year's Day sent forth his first paper from Boston, without a single sub-
scriber, a single coadjutor, or a single dollar of capital. He was his own
editor, publisher, and printer. He lived in his printing-office, — a small
attic in Congress Street. It is difficult to understand how he could have
got his paper under the eyes of his readers, for the customary courtesy of
exchange was not extended to this new comer, and the facilities for dis-
tributing printed matter at a distance were very different fifty years ago
from those of the present day. But the paper was read, and produced an
immediate and striking effect all over the country. At the South laws were
passed making it a penal offence for any free negro to take the Liberator
from the post-office, offering rewards for the apprehension of any person
detected in circulating it; and in the State of Georgia a reward of five
thousand dollars, " to be paid by the Governor to any person or persons
arresting and bringing to trial under the laws of the State, and prosecuting
to conviction, the editor and publisher of the Liberator, or any other person
who shall utter, publish, or circulate said paper in Georgia." At the North,
even in Boston, it was seriously proposed to enact a special law under which
the paper could be suppressed and its editor punished. In the midst of
these dangers the Liberator held its course, and was only discontinued
when the abolition of slavery in the United States had become an accom-
plished fact.1
The earliest of the class newspapers were those devoted to the interests
of the various religious denominations. The idea of a distinctively religious
newspaper first took definite form in the mind of Nathaniel Willis, son of
the printer of the Boston Chronicle, and himself a printer, who had served
his apprenticeship at the end of the last century in the printing-office of his
father.2 By him, as early as 1816, the Boston Recorder was established, with
the aid of Sidney Edwards Morse, who became its first editor. The Re-
corder was the representative of the Orthodox Congregationalists, and
1 [See Dr. Clarke's chapter in this volume, by the war. Dr. Griffin said he never heard of
— ED.] such a thing as religion in a newspaper ; it would
2 " The subject of a religious newspaper still do in a mgaazine. I said I had some experience
rested heavily on my mind. T talked with Chris- in publishing a newspaper, and believed it could
tians in Boston often about it. Many, though be done if Christians would encourage it."
they liked the plan, objected to it as impracti- — Autobiography of a Journalist, by Nathaniel
cable, especially in the hard times occasioned Willis, 1858.
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 633
was sustained by that body with much steadfastness until its union with the
Congregationalist in 1849.
The establishment of one denominational organ naturally led to others.
The Baptists were next in the field with the Watchman aud Reflector, which
followed the Recorder after an interval of three years, and which has per-
haps reached a larger circulation than any of its rivals. It was followed in
1821 by the Christian Register, established by David Reed as the exponent
of the principles of Unitarianism, and as a vehicle for the continued discus-
sion of the points in theology raised some years before by the Unitarian
controversy, so called. The intellectual superiority of the new sect enabled
Mr. Reed to avail himself of the advice and assistance of many men of
distinguished ability.1
Z ion's Herald, the Methodist organ, was established in 1824; .the Uni-
versalist, in 1 829 ; and the Christian Witness, the representative of the
Episcopal Church, in 1835, — completing the list of denominational weeklies,
so far as the Protestants were concerned. The Catholics, not to be singular,
in 1838 established a Catholic organ, the Pilot. All these sectarian news-
papers have been maintained in apparent prosperity up to the present
time.2
A class of newspapers of great importance to the material prosperity of
the country is that of the agricultural papers. The earliest of these was
published at Boston in 1816, the Massachusetts Agricultural Repository and
Journal. The next were the American Farmer, established in Baltimore in
1818, and the PlougJiboy, in Albany in 1821. The fourth was established
in Boston in 1822, under the title of the New England Farmer, by Thomas
Green Fessenden, who conducted it with ability and discretion until his
death in 1837. Transferred in 1846 to Albany, and continued there under
a change of name, it was some years later revived in Boston, where it has
continued without interruption to the present day. The evident usefulness
of a well managed newspaper for farmers, — a class of home-keeping men,
always much given to adhering to old and established methods, — caused
this class of papers to multiply with great rapidity. Farmers' journals
sprang up all over the country; and, in addition to these, almost all the
weekly papers found it for their interest to make up for every issue a farm-
ers' column. It is difficult to estimate the influence of all this information
in improving the methods of agriculture in a country like our own ; in
introducing machines for farm work ; in improving the breed of cattle and
horses ; in explaining systems of drainage, and the treatment of poor
1 In a sketch of the history of the Register, uted to its columns were President Kirkland,
read by Mr. W. H. Reed, at a dinner com- Dr. Noah Worcester, Judge Story, Dr. Green-
memorative of its fiftieth anniversary, Mr. Reed wood, Dr. Bancroft, President Sparks, and Mr.
says of his father : " His chief advisers in the Edward Everett."
earlier years of the Christian Register, were Dr. 2 [See more or less mention of them in the
Channing, Dr. Ware, Professor Norton, and chapters in this volume on the various denomina-
other gentlemen of equal ability outside the min- tions. The Pilot was the earliest permanent
isterial profession. Among those who contrib- Catholic organ. — ED.]
VOL. III. — 80.
634 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
land ; in broadening the minds and enlarging the resources of one of the
most important classes of the population.
The example set by the religious and the agricultural newspapers has
been followed by innumerable journals established in the interest of other
professions and classes. Law, medicine, commerce, natural and mechan-
ical science, mining, architecture, music, are represented each by its
special journal, which faithfully reports whatever of interest in its own line
transpires all over the world. Temperance, spiritualism, the rights of
woman, — whatever new movement of reform or progress, whether real or
imaginary, is set on foot, is at once furnished with its organ in the form of
a newspaper, through which its friends may assert and defend its claims ;
until it seems as if, in spite of the enormous and ever increasing accumula-
tion of books, the remark of Mr. Hale upon taking charge of the Advertiser
in 1814, concerning the dependence of the vast majority of the people on
their newspaper, and the small amount of any other reading accomplished,
must be nearly as true to-day as it was two generations ago.
Having finished this rapid survey of the growth of the newspaper press
for a hundred years, let us go back to the beginning and look at the con-
dition and progress of general literature during the same period.
It is obvious that every condition of political and social existence a hun-
dred years ago was unfavorable to intellectual production. The absorbing
interests and labors of the war were followed by the depression of property,
and later by the excitement of a new government and the strife of parties,
which engrossed the attention of nearly all of that class capable of literary
work. Of this class, as of the whole population in fact, the intellectual
stamp was severely practical and even prosaic, with little imagination or
vivacity. Admirably developed on the side of political aptitude, of public
and private virtue, of good sense and sound judgment, of personal indepen-
dence, they were deficient on the side of the genial virtues, of taste, friend-
ship, the capacity for recreation. With a Puritan ancestry so close behind
them, they could not well have been otherwise. And yet the distinctive fea-
tures of that ancestry — the Puritan quaintness, hardness, rigidity, theologic
style — had, in fifty years of political excitement and struggle, well nigh dis-
appeared. Where there is a man of conspicuous intellectual force, he does
not waste himself in his closet nor in the pulpit; he is busy with affairs of
state. Astonishing as has been the development of mind, the enlargement
and emancipation of thought, the journalism and the literary work of these
years is distinctly inferior to that of the colonial period. That the literary
ability is not wanting is shown by the state-papers of the day, which are
models of clear, vigorous, and often elegant writing. That the literary
instinct is not wanting is shown in the early establishment (in the one
instance at the darkest hour of the Revolutionary War) of such institutions
as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Massachusetts
Historical Society. The American Academy was founded in 1780, with
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 635
Governor Bowdoin as its first president; and was of great service in promot-
ing a love of scientific observation, and in preserving and making known
such observations and discoveries as were made.1
The Massachusetts Historical Society was founded in 1790, — ten years
after the American Academy, — chiefly through the enthusiasm of Jeremy
Belknap, for the purpose of " collecting, preserving, and communicating the
antiquities of America."2 Its collections were at first published in the form
of a weekly periodical called the ^
American Apollo, and published by y
Belknap & Young. This method ^f^^^-^^^^^^c
was continued for nine months. // ^
The collections were then issued
monthly, and collected into volumes as often as they accumulated to
a sufficient mass. After 1799 they were published only in volumes at
intervals averaging about two years. The interest and value of these col-
lections, and of the published proceedings of the Society now covering
nearly a century of active life, are quite inestimable. • They are, however,
by their nature works of limited circulation, and in the early days of the
Society their influence was confined to a very narrow circle of readers and
students.
Of miscellaneous literature at this time there was next to none. Of the
books which this serious people read at this period some idea may be gath-
ered from the infrequent booksellers' advertisements in the newspapers.3
The appetite for a lighter and more attractive literature than the book-
sellers provided was, however, not absolutely wanting. By the year 1789 it
was sufficient to produce a genuine monthly magazine, highly miscellaneous
indeed as to its contents, and with no very elevated standard of style or
matter, but sufficient unto its day, and ominous of better things to come.
The first number of the Massachusetts Magazine, or Monthly Museum of
Knowledge and Rational Entertainment, was issued in January, I789.4 It
1 [An account of the Academy is given in Mr. Soul ; Watts's Lyric Poems ; Stickney's Singing-
Dillaway's chapter in Vol. IV. — ED.] Books; Josephus's Works, 4 vols, ; Kennet's
2 In a letter to Mr. Hazard, asking him to Roman Antiquities ; Bundy's Roman History, 6
become a member, Belknap writes: " We have vols. folio; Mrs. Rowe's Devout Exercises ; Eng-
now formed our society, and it is dubbed not lish Grammar ; Complete Housewife ; Crosby's
the Antiquarian but the Historical Society. It Mariner's Guide; Dodd on Death; Lives of Crim-
consists of only eight, and is limited to twenty- inals, 3 vols. ; etc." A few Latin classics, and
five. It is intended to be an active not a passive books on physics and surgery are added. The
literary body; not to lie waiting like a bed of same paper advertises: "In a neat pocket volume,
oysters for the tide of communication to flow in the whole of the orations that have been deliv-
upon us, but to seek and find, to preserve and ered on the fifth day of March annually, to per-
communicate literary intelligence, especially in petuate the memory of the horrid massacre per-
the historical way." — Mass. Hist. Sec. Proc., petrated on the 5th of March, 1770. There will
i. xv. be ten orations in the volume,and the price will
8 Here is one from the Independent Chronicle be 20 dollars, sewed, in blue."
of Feb. 17, 1780: "The following books may be 4 This is, however, by no means to be sup-
had of J. Boyle, in Marlborough Street, as cheap posed the first venture of this sort in Boston,
as the times will allow, — viz., Lord Chesterfield's though it was the first which seemed to establish
celebrated letters ; Sherlock's Discourses, 4 vols. ; itself on something like a permanent footing.
Doddridge's Rise and Progress of Religion in the Mr. Tudor appends to his account of the An-
636 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
was an octavo of sixty-four pages, made up of brief articles seldom extend-
ing beyond two or three pages, and as varied in character as may be inferred
from the title-page, which promises " Poetry, Musick, Biography, History,
Physick, Geography, Morality, Criticism, Philosophy, Mathematicks, Agri-
culture, Architecture, Chymistry, Novels, Tales, News, Marriages, Deaths,
Meteorological Observations, etc. ; " with this motto from Horace : —
" Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci,
Lectorem delectando, pariterque monendo."
It does not appear that anything was omitted from this comprehensive pro-
gramme. The editors congratulate themselves at the outset on being able
to work in " a soil which Genius has marked for her own, and in which
literary flowers continually bud and blossom ; " and at the end of the first
year are glad to assure themselves that in their first volume " stoical severity
can find nothing incompatible with pure morality, nor adverse to the grand
principles of religion; neither has the blush of sensibility crimsoned the
cheek, nor the lovers of wit received gratification at the pain of innocence."
They promise a sedulous attention to matter and manner, " lest a failure of
this kind might discourage Hope from any further attendance, extort an
indignant frown from the smiling Apollo, and wrest the prophetick scroll
from the hand of Fame, — all which is most seriously deprecated."
During this same year the newspapers print an advertisement of the
" First American Novel," The Power of Sympathy, or the Triumph of Nature :
A novel founded in truth, and dedicated to the young' ladies of America.
The new magazine printed elegant extracts from this production which time
has mercifully swallowed up, but which we can well enough imagine to have
been a tearful history overcharged with sentiment and romance, and loaded
down with moral essays and reflections on suicide and seduction. A stronger
omen of the sensational school was issued two or three years later. In the
Massachusetts Mercury, April 4, 1793, appears the advertisement of The
Helpless Orphan, or Innocent Victim of Revenge : A novel founded on inci-
dents in real life. By an American lady. This also has happily disappeared.
thology, and the club which conducted it, the fol- [The Boston Magazine, begun with Novem-
lowing list, which he says "contains (1821) the ber, 1783, was published by Norman & White;
titles of all the magazines that have been pub- later by Greenleaf & Freeman ; and then by
lished in Massachusetts " : — Edmund Freeman. Sabine says it extended to
Am. • .. 1780. Imperfect sets are in the Public Library
American Magazine and Hist. Chronicle. 3 vols. 1740-43. ' 5
Royal American Magazine i „ 1774. and in Harvard College Library. — ED.]
Boston Magazine i „ 1784. Of the periodicals still in existence in 1821
Massachusetts Magazine 8 „ 1780-96. he gives the following list : —
Columbian Phosnix and Boston Review i ,, 1800.
New England Quarterly Magazine . . i „ 1802. New England Med. Journal (quarterly). Established, 1812.
Monthly Anthology 10 , 1803-11. North American Review „ 1815.
Literary Miscellany
Emerald, or Miscellany of Literature .
Ordeal
Something by Nemo Nobody ....
Omnium Gatherum
Cabinet and Repos'y of Light Literature
General Repository and Review
1805-6. Athenaeum (selections from foreign mag-
1806-8. azines) „ 1816.
1809. Massachusetts Agricultural Repository
ifo> and Journal „ 1816.
1810. The Christian Disciple, Unitarian (every two months).
181 1. The Gospel Advocate, Episcopalian (monthly).
1812-13. American Baptist Magazine (monthly).
Panoplist— Calvinistic Monthly . . . 28 ,, 1806-20. The Missionary Herald (continued Panoplisi).
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 637
But Mrs. Hannah Foster's "Novel, founded on fact," entitled The Coquette ;
Or the History of Eliza Wharton, published originally in 1797, ran through
half-a-dozen editions, continuing for a generation to move the sympathy of
tender readers by its vapid and high-flown sentiment, and is still attainable.
Eight volumes of the MassacJiusetts Magazine, running over as many
years, brought it to the end of its career. Its work was taken up, though in
a somewhat different spirit and style, a few years later, by an association of
literary gentlemen calling themselves the Anthology Club,1 who in 1804
assumed the conduct of the Monthly Anthology, or Magazine of Polite Liter-
ature, of which the first number had been issued in the preceding November.
Of this little club of active-minded young men, — a modest centre of lite-
rary radiance in the little town, — and of the periodical which it sustained
with a worthy pertinacity for eight years, the memory is surely worth pre-
serving. One of its members, William Tudor, has left us an account of it,
of which so much as space will allow shall be here transcribed. Its founder
was the Rev. William Emerson, who became the editor of the Anthology
after six numbers had been issued by his predecessor, Mr. Phinehas Adams,
and " who induced two or three gentlemen to join with him in the care of
the work, and laid the foundation of the Anthology Club."
" The club was regularly organized, and governed by certain rules ; the number of
resident members varied from seven or eight to fifteen or sixteen ; there were a few
honorary members in other towns or states, who occasionally contributed to its pages.
It was one of the rules that every member should write for the work ; the contribu-
tions were in some cases voluntary, in others were assigned by vote, which was the
usual practice in regard to reviews. . . . Nothing was published without the consent
of the society. . . .
" The following gentlemen were members of the club, some of them for a short
time only, the rest during the greater part of its existence : Rev. Drs. Gardiner,
McKean, Kirkland ; Rev. Messrs. Emerson, Buckminster, S. C. Thacher, and Tucker-
man ; Drs. Jackson, Warren, Gorham, and Bigelow ; Messrs. W. S. Shaw, P. Thacher,
W. Tudor, A. M. Walter, E. J. Dana, William Wells, R. H. Gardiner, B. Wells, James
Savage, J. Feild, Professor Willard, Winthrop Sargent, J. Stickney, Alexander H.
Everett, J. Head, Jr., George Ticknor.2
" The club met once a week, in the evening ; and, after deciding on the manu-
scripts that were offered, partook of a plain supper, and enjoyed the full pleasure of
literary chat. . . . The meetings were often prolonged into the middle watch, and the
member who went away too soon was a subject of pity. It is observed in the records
of one evening : ' Mr. , as usual, went away early, on which Mr. remarked
that he was like Mercutio, always killed in the S3cond act.' The concluding minutes
of another evening are : ' The society broke up (credite postert) before eleven o'clock.'
. . . The pages of the Anthology were very unequal, but . . . the work undoubtedly
1 [The records of the Anthology Club, 1805- W. E. Charming, then in the first year of his
n, are in the cabinet of the Historical Society, pastorate at Federal Street, had a paper in the
See Lee's Lives of the Buckminsters, 128, 323, first number, on "Ambition." Andrews Norton
407. — ED.] was a frequent writer; Nathaniel Bowditch, John
2 Many other names, since widely known, Quincy Adams, R. H. Dana, were occasional
added brilliancy to the pages of the Anthology, contributors.
638 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
rendered service to our literature and aided the diffusion of good taste in the commu-
nity. It was one of the first efforts of regular criticism on American books, and it
suffered few productions of the day to escape its notice." l . . .
But the publication of their magazine, which was discontinued at the end
of its tenth year, in 1811, was by no means the greatest service which the
members of this little club were able to render to the community in which
it flourished.2 It was proposed among them to form an Anthology Reading-
room and Library. The plan was taken up with spirit; several of the mem-
bers made generous gifts of books ; and the enterprise, once set on its feet,
commended itself so strongly to the friends of letters outside the club, that
a subscription of money was obtained which assured its immediate success.
This was the origin of the Boston Athenaeum, — a private institution sustained
and fostered by private benefactions, but conducted from the first with an
enlightened liberality which has placed it among the most important and
useful educational institutions of the city.3
The Anthology, in its turn, expired ; and around the pleasant board of
the little club (if, indeed, the club survived its parent) other questions exer-
cised the minds of its members than the composition of the next number
of the magazine. It had, however, served a good purpose, and the literary
taste of its members was now free to employ itself in other fields. An
opportunity was not long in arriving. Mr. Tudor, whose reminiscences of
the Anthology I have just quoted, confident that there was by this time
enough of literary skill in the community to warrant such an undertaking,
began in May, 1815, the publication of the North American Review and
Miscellaneous Journal. " It was originally intended," says Mr. Tudor, " to
combine the properties of a magazine and a review, and was issued every
two months. It continued in this manner until 1818, when it was changed
to a quarterly publication. . . . My motives in this publication were not
wholly selfish. I thought such a work would be of public utility, and that
there was talent enough in this vicinity to give it ample support. I began
it without sufficient arrangement for aid from others, and was, in conse-
quence, obliged to write more myself than was suitable for a work of this
description, which requires a variety of style, and much more elaborate
investigation of the subjects discussed than any one person can possibly
give. I was, however, occasionally assisted by some of the ablest writers
we possess."4
The confidence of Mr. Tudor was more than justified by the result.
Under a succession of editors, — of whom Willard Phillips, Edward T.
1 Miscellanies, by the author of "Letters on War, and as forming an epoch in the intellectual
the Eastern States." Boston: 1821. history of the United States." — History of the
2 Josiah Quincy said of this club, with most Boston At/ienceiim.
or all of whose members he was more or less 8 [See the Chapter on "Libraries" in Vol.
intimately acquainted : "Its labors may be con- IV. — En]
sidered as a true revival of polite learning in this * Of the first four volumes, three quarters are
country, after that decay and neglect which re- known to be wholly from his pen. Quincy's
suited from the distractions of the Revolutionary Boston Athenaum, app. p. 59.
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 639
Channing, Edward Everett, and Jared Sparks were the earliest followers of
its originator, — the North American Review maintained its place for more
than fifty years at the head of the
periodical literature of the country.
In the range of subjects treated, in
the ability and learning brought to the discussion of them, in the soundness
and justness of its criticisms on the current literature of the day, in the gen-
eral temperance, right-mindedness, and consistency of its tone, it established
a standard of literary performance of which it is not easy to measure the
influence, but which we shall not be likely to value too highly. Among its
writers may be found the name of almost every man who has ennobled the
literature or the statesmanship of Massachusetts. John Adams, Daniel
Webster, Edward Everett, and A. H. Everett were among the contributors
of the first three years. Bancroft, Palfrey, Prescott, among historians ; Bry-
ant, Longfellow, Dana, Emerson, among poets; Norton, Sparks, Ticknor,
Parsons, Story, Savage, among scholars; Jacob Bigelow, Bowditch, Peirce,
Gray, among men of science, — such were the names which in the early
history of the Nortli American, before the rapid multiplication of books had
begun, upheld in its pages the cause of sound letters, and answered conclu-
sively the question as to the possibility of a national literature in America.
The day of quarterlies has passed ; the pace of the world of letters, as of the
world of business, has grown too rapid to comport with their deliberate and
long-drawn articles, and their long intervals of torpor, during which a book
may almost be said to be made, read, and forgotten. The habits of these
later days require reviews to be prompt, frequent, compact, open to all com-
ers, making less account of dignity than of point, and less of consistency
than of a nimble wit. We shall be fortunate if the light-armed successors
of the Nortli American are able to hold their ground with so much tenacity,
and to give, after half a century of work, so good an account of themselves.
The three periodicals I have noticed are interesting as showing the steady
rise of the taste and capacity for letters in Boston in the early years of the.
century, and the gradual formation of a literary class, — small indeed in
numbers, and limited in scope and strength, and wholly imitative of English
models ; but exhibiting, year by year, a firmer confidence, a steadier grasp
of subject, a more independent spirit in criticism, and a hopeful impatience
of their own limitations. A very small proportion of this class were able
to command sufficient leisure for extended literary work; the hospitable
pages of the magazine or review offered them an opportunity for literary
recreation of which they were not slow in availing themselves.1
The number of books by native authors, published at this period, is
1 Judge Story, writing in 1819 to Sir William have leisure to devote exclusively to literature or
Scott, describes with emphasis this condition of the fine arts, or to composition or abstract sci-
American life : — ence. This obvious reason . . . will explain why
" So great is the call for talents of all sorts we have few professional authors, and these not
in the active pursuit of professional and other among our ablest men." And in the same letter,
business in America, that few of our ablest men speaking of having forwarded to his correspond-
640 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
very small. The publishers, of whom at the opening of the century there
were already a half-dozen in the city, showed a commendable enterprise in
the reprinting of the English classics. The monthly lists of the Anthology
include the names of Shakespeare,1 Pope, Goldsmith, Scott, Southey, Burke,
Adam Smith, Boswell's Johnson, Bacon, Bunyan, Campbell, Paley, Hume,
and perhaps others. But except in one department there is but a scanty
sprinkling of American writers. That exception consists in the sermons
which were poured forth in portentous numbers, without ceasing, — ser-
mons and replies to sermons ; orations, addresses, and sermons again.
These were the mists of the dawn, through which the promise of the day
was not undiscernible.2
Even before the beginning of the present century works of more than
transient interest and value began to make their appearance at intervals,
and examples of sustained literary labor are not wholly wanting. Jeremy
Belknap's comprehensive ///.r/tfrj/ of New H amp si lire, published between the
years 1784 and 1792, — of which the first volume was issued at Philadelphia
and the other two at Boston, and which, far from limiting itself to the bare
recital of historical incidents, treated broadly of the physical geography and
the natural history of the State and of the social condition of its people, — was
a work of real and substantial value, and was separated from all previous
American histories — as of Hubbard, Hutchinson, Prince, Mather, and lesser
writers3 — by a mental revolution not less marked and decisive than the poli-
tical revolution of which it was largely the result. The Puritan tone has dis-
appeared, and if the modern philosophic note has not been struck, its hour
is visibly at hand. In 1794, Dr. Belknap began in his American Biography
the publication of a collection of short biographical memoirs " of those
persons who have been distinguished in America as adventurers, states-
men, philosophers, divines, warriors, authors, and other remarkable charac-
ters, comprehending a recital of the events connected with their lives and
actions." Beginning with the earliest explorers and continuing with the
.English settlers of Virginia and New England, the work was interrupted by
the author's too early death before the appearance of the second volume.
ent some numbers of a "review published in The memoirs of the American Academy of Arts
Boston," presumably the North American, he and Sciences do great honour to the gentlemen
says : " The review is edited by gentlemen young who compose it, and to the taste of our country,
in life, engaged in active business, and who have ' The Conquest of Canaan,' by Mr. Dwight ;
scarcely a moment of leisure to devote to these 'McFingal,' supposed by Mr. Trumbull ; the
pursuits. The labor, too, is voluntary, and with- tragedy of 'The Patriot Chief;' the poems of
out profit to themselves." — Story's Life and Arouet; and a collection of twenty-four poems
Letters, \. 320. just published in the Southern States, — are in-
1 (See a note to Mr. Clapp's chapter on "The stances which prove the prophetick inspiration
Drama," in Vol. IV. — ED.] of the Bishop of Cloane to be other than Uto-
- As early as 1786, an enthusiastic writer in pian, who, sixty years since, speaking of America,
the Centinel had discovered that the sun was said : —
even then risen. " This," he exclaims, " is cer- - 'There shall be sung another golden age,
tainly the age of American literature. The orig- The rise of Empire and of Arts,
inal performances which have lately appeared in The Sood and 8reat inspiring epick rage
the United States are such as must excite very
pleasant emotions in every philanthropick breast. 3 [See Vol. II. — ED.]
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 641
Miss Hannah Adams is perhaps the earliest instance in our history of a
woman who deliberately devoted herself to a life of literary study and pro-
duction. Her View of Religions was published as early as 1784, and met
with great success. Her Summary History of New England appeared in
1799, after prolonged research rendered difficult and painful by an impaired
eyesight, which did not, however, prevent her from undertaking a still more
laborious project, the History of the Jews. Her History of New England
was afterward published in an abridged form for the use of schools, — an
enterprise which finally involved the good lady in a controversy of prodig-
ious length and growing exasperation with the Rev. Jedediah Morse, who
after publishing his American Geography and his Gazetteer composed in his
turn a Compendious History of New England^ also for the use of schools,
which Miss Adams maintained to be an infringement upon her own
abridgement. The quarrel enlisted a great number of disputants, and
extended with more or less vivacity over a period of ten years. Nathaniel
Bowditch issued, in 1800, his Practical Navigator, and was perhaps even
then consciously preparing himself for the great work which was to
make his name as famous in Europe as in America.1 Dr. Abiel Holmes
had published, in 1798, his Biography of President Stiles. In 1805 he
published his American Annals, a work which, admirable as it is in com-
prehensiveness, accuracy, clearness, and compactness of statement, is sin-
gular in the strictness of its abstinence from so much as a comment on
the events recorded. These are annals only, but very full and complete
annals of all that was known eighty years ago concerning the history of
the American continent from its discovery by Columbus to the time at
which the book was written.2
Mrs. Mercy Warren's History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of
the American Revolution was published in the same year with Dr. Holmes's
work, to which it forms a striking contrast. Mrs. Warren's book, published
in her seventy-seventh year, though written some years earlier, is a record
of recent events of the most exciting character, in which the writer had the
most personal interest, and with many of the actors in which she had an
intimate personal acquaintance. The pages glow with a woman's enthu-
siasm, admiration, indignation, and triumph, and are enlivened by the
animation, vigor, and wit which had made their author one of the most
interesting and most influential of the women of the Revolutionary era.3
In 1803 Thaddeus Mason Harris,4 — a man who possessed the true literary
spirit, who was one of the earliest members of the Massachusetts Historical
Society, and who had held from 1791 to 1793 the office of librarian of
1 [See Professor Lovering's chapter in Vol. 3 [See Mrs. Cheney's chapter in Vol. IV.
IV. — ED.] John Adams took exception to Mrs. Warren's
2 Jared Sparks, in a review of the second account of him in this book, sometimes with
edition, published in 1826, says of this work: justice, but too often with an ill-concealed and
" It is the best repository of historical, bio- offensive temper ; and his correspondence with
graphical, and chronological knowledge respect- her is printed in 5 Mass. Hist. Coll. iv. — ED.]
ing America that can be found embodied in any 4 [See portrait and note in the chapter on
one work." "Dorchester," in this volume. — Eo.J
VOL. m. — 8r.
642 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Harvard College, — published a compilation of general information called
The Minor Encyclopedia, in four small volumes; which served a useful pur-
pose as a substitute for the more voluminous Cyclopcedia of Rees, then
the standard work of its class, and which remained in general use a gener-
ation later. In 1805 Mr. Harris published a volume on a topic, then un-
touched : A Journal of a Tour into the Territory Northwest of the Allc-
ghany Mountains : Including a geographical and historical account of the
State of Ohio.
The letters of John Adams, which had been printed in the Boston Patriot,
were collected and published in a volume in 1809; and in the same year
the works of Fisher Ames,1 who had died the year before, were published
with a brief memoir. This volume was the subject of a cordial review in
the Anthology, by Josiah Quincy.
The biographical dictionaries of Dr. John Eliot and William Allen were
published, as it happened, almost simultaneously in 1809. The former
work was limited in its scope to " a brief account of the first settlers and
other eminent characters among the magistrates, ministers, literary and
worthy men in New England." Mr. Allen's dictionary was more general,
bringing his biographies down to the time at which he wrote, and including
a concise history of the thirteen colonies. During the next year Dr.
Trumbull's General History of the United States appeared, — the last of
the histories written in the rigid Puritan temper, with the faith in special
providences to a chosen people still unshaken.
The Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory of John Quincy Adams, delivered
to the students of Harvard College during his brief professorship, and which
became widely celebrated as examples of the art
cA SL c*H d&/m& of which they treated, were published in two large
volumes in 1810. In the same year appeared
Isaiah Thomas's not less celebrated History of Printing. Thomas, long a
prosperous printer in Worcester, established himself in 1788 in Boston with
Ebenezer T. Andrews, where the business increased so rapidly that in a few
years they had established branch houses in Baltimore, Albany, and perhaps
one or two other cities. They were the publishers of the Massachusetts
Magazine. In the publication of school-books they acquired something like
a monopoly, and most of those used throughout the United States for a
generation bore the familiar imprint of Thomas & Andrews. Of the History
of Prin ting, the constant references to it in the chapters of this work2 which
treat of the Press and Literature of the earlier periods are sufficient evi-
dence of the value and interest. Thomas was an enlightened and liberal-
minded man, and his love and appreciation of good literature are abundantly
exhibited in all that we know of his honorable and successful career. He
was one of the most active of the founders of the American Antiquarian
Society in 1812; was president of the society till his death in 1831, and
1 [See note to Mr. Lodge's chapter in this 2 [See Vol. II. p. 410, for Thomas's portrait,
volume. — ED.] — ED.]
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 643
endowed it by his will, bequeathing to it his valuable library and a building
for its use.
If we look through these early years for works of imagination, whether
of poetry or prose fiction, we shall find little to cheer us. Fiction is long
represented by Mrs. Susannah Rowson, prominent during the first twenty
years of this century as a successful teacher of young ladies in Boston and
Mcdford, as she had been prominent at an earlier age as a sprightly and
graceful actress. She was the editor of the Boston Weekly Magazine, a
periodical in quarto form, published by Samuel Gilbert and Thomas Dean,
and which had an existence of three years. For this magazine Mrs. Row-
son wrote a serial story, running through thirty-three numbers, called
"Sincerity," and published in 1813 in book form, by Charles Williams,
under the new title of Sarah, the Exemplary Wife. Charlotte Temple and
Reuben and RacJiel were novels of which perhaps the most that can be said
is that they were the best produced as yet on these shores ; yet of the
former Buckingham says twenty-five thousand copies were sold in a few
years.
As to poetry, — Joseph Story,1 then twenty-five years old, printed in i8o42
a poem in heroic metre, entitled the Power of Solitude, with some fugitive
verses added ; but I have seen it stated that at a maturer age he burned all
the copies he could get possession of. The only other poetical publication
I know of, belonging to these early years, is a thin volume which appeared
in 1808, called The Embargo, or Sketches of the Times, — a ferocious attack
on the administration of Jefferson and the statesmen connected with it.
This was the singular beginning of the poetical life of William Cullen
Byrant. He was but fourteen years old. when this little poem was pub-
lished ; and the second edition of it, issued the next year, contained a note
from his father, drawn from him by some doubts which had been expressed
as to the age of the author, and certifying that the poem was written before
his son had completed his fourteenth year.
As regards the production of literary works, the century since the close
of the Revolutionary War divides itself naturally enough into four periods,
not very unequal in point of time, — the first extending to the establishment
of the North American Review; the second ending with the first publica-
tion of the Dial, in 1840; the third with the breaking out of the Rebellion.
Of the first period we have already made a review which, however hasty
and superficial, is sufficient to show that, along with a lamentable but not
unnatural poverty of literary resources, there existed the material for rapid
and substantial improvement in the future. We shall see, as we go on, how
steady was the growth of the literary spirit as the complement of the na-
tional growth in wealth and material consequence.
Taking, then, the establishment of the North American Review as the
beginning of our second period, it is evident that at that time there
1 [See his portrait and references in Mr. '-' The same year in which he published his
Morse's chapter in Vol. IV. — ED.] first legal work, Pleadings in Civil Actions.
644 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
existed no general literary culture outside the small circles of educated and
well-to-do persons like that from which this Review and its forerunner, the
Anthology, had sprung. It was to these circles that the publishers com-
mended the slender editions of the foreign and domestic authors which they
ventured to send forth. Dwellers in the country, and to a large extent
dwellers in the city as well, were content to depend on the semi-weekly
newspaper, with its poor little budget of news, its borrowed fragment of tale
or essay, and its bit of watery poetry in the corner of the last page. A
copy of the Pilgrims Progress, or the Saints Rest, might not improbably
find its place with the family Bible on the table of the best room, and a well
used copy of the spelling-book or Farmer's Almanack lay more ready to
hand in the family living-room or kitchen. Of the limited extent to which
the diffusion of wholesome literature had proceeded, we have an illustration
in the works which were from time to time compiled, to serve as reading-
books in the schools. Of these books, the most successful and widely used
at the time we are considering were perhaps the two published by Caleb
Bingham, — the American Preceptor, of which the first edition was published
in 1794, and the Columbian Orator, which followed two years later. Succes-
sive editions of both these works were issued, and for a full generation they
continued in general use in t'he district schools of New England. Of the
two, the Columbian Orator was perhaps the more popular, and held its place
the longer. It contained, in the words of the title-page, " a variety of orig-
inal and selected pieces, together with rules calculated to improve youth and
others in the ornamental and useful art of eloquence." It was a forbidding
and gloomy compilation. Of eighty pieces here brought together, four were
on the Day of Judgment; thirteen were fragments of speeches in Parlia-
ment, on topics which had for the most part long lost their interest for
American readers. Speeches in Congress, speeches to the Roman Senate
and people, civic and academic orations on the greatness of the United
States, on the power of eloquence, on the glory of independence, furnished
another large proportion of the whole. There were thirteen poetical ex-
tracts from such sources as the David and Goliath or the Moses in tlie Bul-
rushes of the excellent Hannah More, from Addison's Cato, from Rowe's
Tamerlane. To all this dismal entertainment the only relief was a scene
from a farce of Garrick, and a bit of Miss Burney's Camilla, turned into a
dialogue. Nothing illustrates more forcibly the forlorn condition of mind in
which our forefathers walked through this vale of tears than such a collec-
tion of their children's school-pieces.1 From the Columbian Orator of Caleb
Bingham to the American First-Class Book of John Pierpont is but a few
years in time ; but what an advance in breadth and capacity of understand-
ing ! The amelioration in the mental and spiritual condition of the people
1 A venerable lady has told me with a re- sion of the minister's visit at the house, to stand
membrance half amused, half painful, of having, up and read to him from the Columbian Orator
as the eldest child of the family, and the most the fragment beginning. " Let us endeavor to
proficient in her studies at the district school, realize the majesty and terror of the universal
been called by her grandmother, on the occa- alarm on the final judgment day," etc.
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 645
is now proceeding at an accelerated rate. Many causes can be seen to have
worked together in producing this change, — the rapid decline of the Puritan
spirit, and the emancipation of the people from the theological straight-
jacket which had cramped and stifled them so long; the improvement in
their material condition; the leaven of the neighboring university; the in-
creased ease of communication between town and country; the more abun-
dant distribution of the reprints of English books which were now rapidly
multiplying.
An Elementary Treatise on Mineralogy and Geology, by Professor Parker
Cleaveland of Bowdoin College, published in 1817, was a work of great
scientific value, which brought its author at once into intimate relations and
correspondence with Davy, Brewster, Cuvier, and many other eminent men
of science in England and on the Continent, where he was at once made a
member of no less than sixteen learned societies.1
Dr. Jacob Bigelow's Florida Bostoniensis belongs properly to the first of
our periods, the first edition having been published in 1814. His second
work, American Medical Botany, — a collection of the native medical plants
of the United States, with their properties and uses in medicine, diet, and the
arts, — was published in 1819-20, in three volumes, and was everywhere
recognized as a work of great practical as well as scientific value.
The writings of Alexander H. Everett, which began to appear about this
time, are of two quite distinct kinds, corresponding with the two distinct
lines of life which he followed alternately. Mr. Everett was Minister of the
United States, successively at the Hague and at Madrid, at a period when
the relations of the European powers among each other were in a very
uncertain state. While occupying the former position he wrote an essay,
which was published at London and Boston in 1821, entitled Europe, a
General Survey of the Political Situation of the Principal Powers, etc., in
which he took a somewhat optimistic view of the prospects of European
politics, which appears, curiously enough, to be based chiefly on what he
expected from Russia. This work was translated into French, German, and
Spanish, and was followed in 1827 by a work of similar character, on the
situation and prospects of America ; in which the author states with force
the fortunate conditions attending the growth and development of the
United States, and answers, without exaggeration or excess of pride, the
cavils of unfriendly foreign critics. Upon Mr. Everett's return to Boston
in 1829, he became the editor of the North American Review, and one of
its most constant writers upon purely literary topics. Two volumes of his
Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, including some poems, were published
in 1845.
In 1824 the Notth American welcomed an efficient coadjutor in the
Christian Examiner. The Examiner took up the work of the Christian
1 A second edition of his work was called which so many discoveries have since been made
for in 1822, and another in 1836, — a longevity and so many new theories promulgated. [See
remarkable in a treatise on a natural science in Professor Lovering's chapter in Vol. IV. — ED.]
646 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Disciple, a monthly Unitarian Magazine, begun in 1813 under the charge
of Dr. Noah Worcester, and continued later in the hands of the Rev. Henry
Ware, Jr. The Examiner was at first edited by John G. Palfrey, and was
long remarkable among the denominational journals for the high literary
character of its articles, in which the theological bias was not allowed to
stand in the way of sound philosophic discussion of topics quite distinct
from all theologic connection. It was in the first year of the Examiner
that the literary ability of Channing was first brought to the general notice,
by his articles on Milton, Napoleon, and Fenelon. The Unitarian denom-
ination was young, fresh, vigorous, and had, through much hard fighting,
made good its claim to a place among the Christian sects of the day. The
enthusiasm of the contest was not yet cooled, and the foremost men among
the denomination (young men almost without exception) believed its mis-
sion was to be accomplished by work.1 Channing, in an article on " Na-
tional Literature," printed in the seventh volume of the Examiner, explained
the Unitarian idea of the connection of sound literature with a sound the-
ology in these most explicit words: "Our chief hopes of an improved
literature rest on our hopes of an improved religion. From the prevalent
theology which has come down to us from the dark ages we can hope
nothing. It has done its best. All that can grow up under its sad shade
has been already brought forth. True faith is of another lineage." On the
other hand the Missionary Herald, successor of the Panoplist, the earliest
sectarian magazine established in Boston, sustained with vigor the cause
of the declining ancient faith ; but it sustained that cause with theologic
weapons exclusively. Into the domain of pure literature its champions did
not enter. The faith of Channing was justified ; and from that early day to
the present the literature of this country has been the work of men to
whom the old New England theology was but a tradition.2
About 1825 an increase of productiveness is apparent, though the in-
crease was not immediately sustained. In this year first appeared, in its
complete form, the History of New England, by John Winthrop, of which
a portion, comprising all that was then known to be in existence, had been
printed in 1790, at Hartford, under the auspices of Governor Trumbull. In
the spring of 1816 the missing volume of Winthrop's manuscript was acci-
dentally discovered in the tower of the Old South Meeting-house, and
placed in the keeping of the Massachusetts Historical Society, which at
once took measures looking to its publication. A somewhat serious diffi-
culty stood in the way of this enterprise. The handwriting of the first
governor was as hieroglyphics to his successors. But " the labor we delight
in physics pain." James Savage gladly undertook the work of deciphering
the manuscript and preparing it for the press ; 3 and, after many delays and
1 " In beginning the publication of the Chris- 2 [See Mr. Bradford's chapter on " Philo-
tian Disciple, five years ago, we announced our sophic Thought in Boston," in Vol. IV. — ED.]
intention to use it in defence of controverted 8 " The difficulty of transcribing it for the
religious truth." — Preface to first number of press seemed to appall several of the most com-
the Christian Examiner, 1824. petent members. The task appeared inviting to
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 647
accidents, the entire diary was worthily published by him in 1825, with
abundant notes.
Jared Sparks, who had become for a second time the editor of the North
American Review in 1822, began, shortly after, his laborious researches
among the state papers at Wash-
ington and in the capitals of all
the original States of the Union,
with a view of publishing a col-
lection, as nearly complete as possible, of the writings of Washington. The
papers at Mount Vernon were put into his hands; and in 1828 he ob-
tained, by the friendly influence of members of the British Cabinet and of
Lafayette, permission to transcribe such documents as he might find of use
in the state-paper offices of London and Paris. The publication of this work,
which extended to twelve volumes, covered the years from 1834 to 1837.
Its success was immediate and gratifying.1 This was but the beginning of
an imposing series of compilations, involving prolonged and tedious if not
difficult research, requiring the exercise of judgment in the selection and
skill in the arrangement of voluminous material which would have ap-
palled at the outset all but the stoutest of literary workers. In 1829 Mr.
Sparks brought out the Diplomatic Correspondence of the Revolution^ also in
twelve volumes octavo, of which the material was derived mostly from the
archives of the State Department at Washington, though the foreign offices
furnished as before a considerable portion. From 1835 to 1840 he pub-
lished a collection of the Works of Franklin with a memoir of his life,
taken up where the autobiography stopped. In addition to these labors he
wrote and published, in 1832, a Biography of Gouvernenr Morris ; he origi-
nated the American Almanac, of which, in 1830, he edited the first volume;
he projected and carried out a Library of American Biography, of which
one series, covering the years from 1835 to 1839 and comprising ten I2mo
volumes, was so successful that another series was begun at once, which
extended to fifteen volumes, of which the last was published in 1846. Of
the sixty brief biographies included in these twenty-five volumes, eight
were written by Mr. Sparks. Perhaps no other American writer has added
so great a mass of valuable matter to the libraries of his country. His
work, if not brilliant, is enduring; and all laborers in the field of American
history and biography will owe to his patient and long-continued labors
their own comparative exemption from the drudgery of research.2
In a lighter walk of literature, also, a greater activity is observable.
Miss Catherine Sedgwick's stories were among the first works of fiction
which can be said to possess any considerable merit. A Neiv England Tale,
published anonymously, appeared in 1822. It was followed, two years
me." — Savage's preface. [See Vol. I. p. xvii. '2 [The library of Mr. Sparks, rich in works on
109, 463. — ED.] American history, is now in Cornell University,
1 A selection of the letters was published in except his manuscript collections which are in
Paris by Guizot ; and at Leipsic, Von Raumer Harvard College Library. A catalogue of it, pre-
published a translation of the entire work. p'ared by C. A. Cutter, has been printed. — ED.]
648 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
later, by Redwood, which achieved great popularity both at home and
abroad, being reprinted in England and translated into French, German,
Italian, and Swedish. Within the next eleven years Miss Sedgwick pro-
duced Hope Leslie,
Clarence, Le Bossu,
The Linwoods, and
a series of children's
books. They are
for the most part
placid stories of New England country life, with vivacity enough to retain
a gentle hold on the attention, and with a refinement and grace of style
which carry the reader not unwillingly over the long descriptive or reflec-
tive passages, during which the action of the story comes to a halt.
The first stories of Lydia Maria Child followed close upon those of Miss
Sedgwick, which in their chief characteristics they much resemble. Hobo-
•mok, an Indian novel, appeared in 1824, and The Rebels the next year. But
Mrs. Child's extraordinary versatility and untiring industry would not let
her be content with a single line of work. She set on foot in 1826 a chil-
dren's magazine called the the Juvenile Miscellany, of which she remained
for eight years the editor, writing for it such stories as children enjoy and
profit by at once, — short, lively, picturesque in character and incident, and
with a moral not too obtrusive. She was at the same time the editor of a
collection of biographies called the Ladies' Family Library, for which she
wrote the lives of Madame de Stael and Madame Roland, of Lady Rachel
Russell and Madame Guyon, Biographies of Good Wives, and the History
of the Condition of Women in All Ages in two volumes. The Mothers' Book,
The Girl's Book, and the Frugal Housewife, are works of which the char-
acter is indicated by their titles. A genial good sense, and practical, con-
vincing wisdom, gave both charm and influence to these simple lessons in
the essentials of home life, not less needed by the present generation than
by that for which they were written. But the books thus enumerated,
various as they are, were far from exhausting the lines in which Mrs.
Child's activity found its exercise. She was an ardent reformer. Her
compact and vigorous Appeal for that
class of Americans called Africans,
published in .1833, was one of the
earliest books to help on the Antislavery movement, which was then be-
ginning to acquire momentum ; and her noble enthusiasm in this cause
never flagged to the end of her long life.1 In 1841 she became, with
her husband, an editor of the National Antislavery Standard, published
in New York, to which city they had lately removed. Twenty years
later, when John Brown lay under sentence of death in Charlestown
(Va.) jail, Mrs. Child sent him a letter of sympathy which involved her
in a correspondence with Governor Wise and Mr. Mason, of Virginia.
1 [See Dr. James Freeman Clarke's chapter in this volume. — ED.]
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 649
This correspondence was published in a pamphlet, of which three hun-
dred thousand copies were circulated,1 — a striking illustration of the
excited state of public feeling at that crisis. The " Letters from New
York," contributed at short intervals to the Boston Courier, in 1841-42,
probably did more for the immediate popularity of Mrs. Child than any of
her more laborious works. Depicting with rare tendernass and observation,
and with a lively and graceful style, the thousand contrasted aspects of
human life in a great city, the letters were greatly admired and copied
into newspapers all over the country. They were afterward collected and
published in two volumes. Her last important work, the most ambitious of
all her undertakings, was issued in 1855, in three volumes, with the title,
The Progress of Religious Ideas.
Two remarkable series of books for children were commenced nearly
simultaneously in 1825 ; the one by S. G. Goodrich, afterwards much more
widely known by the pseudonym of Peter Parley, attached to his first books.
Mr. Goodrich was a Boston publisher, and began in 1828 an illustrated
annual called the Token, which was continued until 1842. Mr. Goodrich
was the chief contributor, but was assisted with an occasional paper from
other hands, among whom was Nathaniel Hawthorne, then quite unknown
to fame. Many of the . Twice Told Tales appeared in the Token, where they
attracted little or no attention, and where, but for the splendor of his greater
works, they would have doubtless remained decently interred. The books
of Peter Parley are upon all imaginable subjects within the comprehension
of children, from the elementary arithmetic and geography of the primary
school, to travels, biography, natural history, astronomy, and political
economy, and the young reader has his choice of subjects. Mr. Good-
rich's own count of the number of his published works runs up to one
hundred and seventy, of which one hundred and sixteen were issued
under the name of Peter Parley. " Of all these, about seven millions
of volumes have been sold. About three hundred thousand volumes are
now sold annually."2
The works of Jacob Abbot are not less voluminous than those of Mr.
Goodrich. The Young Christian series of books for boys, issued in 1825,
comprises four volumes. The Rollo Books,
begun in 1830, extended to twenty-four vol-
umes. Later came the Marco Paul Series and
the Franconia Stories ; the one of six volumes,
the other of ten. Then followed a long succession of illustrated histories,
ancient and modern ; then more story books, twelve series ; and finally a
course of Science for the Young, treating, in separate volumes, of Light,
Heat, Electricity, Water, Land, etc. Very many of these books are even
now in active circulation, and are as much admired by the boys and
girls of to-day as they were by their grandfathers and grandmothers fifty
years ago.
1 New American Cyclopaedia. 2 Goodrich's Recollections of a Lifetime, 1856.
VOL. III. — 82.
650 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Of poetry, the production during the second period was very slender in
quantity. There was, however, now and then something in that direction
worth considering. " Going into town one day," writes Richard H. Dana,
» x-^ " while assisting E. T. Chan-
H\)I££4L' ^"^ //• Lj2S&L~+-».tPt* *r nmS m tne North American Re-
view, he read to me a couple
of pieces of poetry which had
just been sent to the Review, —
the ' Thanatopsis ' and the
' Inscription for the Entrance
to a Wood.' While Channing was reading one of them I broke out, say-
ing, ' That was never written on this side the water;' and naturally enough,
considering what American poetry had been up to that moment."
It was ten years after these early poems of Bryant were published before
Dana (who had contributed some slighter pieces to the New York Review}
published, in 1827, The Buccaneer, and other small poems. In 1833 he
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AUTOGRAPH OF CHARLES SPRAGUE.1
issued a larger volume, which included some later poems and the papers
written many years before for The Idle Man. In the same year Longfellow
has published his first modest volume, the grave and tender translation of
the Coplas de Manrique. Whittier, editor of a small newspaper in Hart-
1 [An extract from his " Centennial Ode " is Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., February, 1875, p. 42?-
given \nfac-simile in Vol. I., p. 246. For Mr. The present fac-simile is from a letter lent by his
Waterston's notice of Charles Sprague, see son, Mr. C. J. Sprague. — ED.]
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 651
ford, has printed two years before his Legends of New England, and in
1836 will publish Mogg Megone. In the latter year Holmes's first volume
will appear. There is even a moment when it seems possible that an ex-
president may devote to the service of poetry the powers which have raised
him to the heights of statesmanship. In 1832 there appears a poem, in
heroic verse, entitled Dermot McMorrogh; Or the Conquest of Ireland, —
an historical tale in four cantos, by John Quincy Adams, which owed its
existence to the author's admiration for Byron's Don Juan, and which, as
his son suggests, " would probably have met with a better reception from
the public had the expectation been less high, and its model not have over-
shadowed it altogether."
Charles Sprague, whose occasional poems, — notably the Shakespeare
Ode, written for the festival at the Boston Theatre, in 1823, the Ode for
the Centennial Celebration of Boston, in 1830, and the Phi Beta Kappa poem
on Curiosity, — had struck a note of grace unusual in productions of that
character, was also the author of many minor poems in which the tender-
ness and purity of thought were matched by the grace and felicity of
expression.
Of the poetry of John Pierpont, the greater portion perhaps consists of
occasional verses for the dedication of churches, for the ordinations of min-
isters, for the meetings of temperance societies, for anniversary celebrations,
for the laying of corner-stones, and the like, — fugitive verses, of which the
interest passed away with the occasions
which called them forth. Another con-
siderable portion consists of patriotic
and political pieces which blaze with
the ardent spirit of the reformer, much
as those of Whittier did, twenty years later. There are, however, a small
number of poems of a wholly different and superior order, — poems filled with
a soft and tender fancy, like the " Passing Away," or with grave and lofty
reflection, like "The Exile at Rest," — which indicated a poetic gift which
would doubtless have borne more abundant fruit but for the pressure of
the stormy times on which it fell.
A new magazine was established in 1831. Mr. Edwin Buckingham, son
of the renowned editor of the Galaxy and the Courier, — who had served an
apprenticeship in the office of the last named paper, during which he had
shown a marked aptitude for literary work, and who had afterward been
made an assistant-editor of the Courier, — ventured, with his father's assis-
tance, to set on foot the New England Magazine. At the death of its
young projector, two years later, his father became its editor; but finding
the double charge of a monthly magazine and a daily newspaper too much
even for his vigorous powers, it was sold, in 1834, to Dr. S. G. Howe and
John O. Sargent. In a literary point of view the enterprise was a success-
ful one. Since the discontinuance of the Anthology, there had been in
Boston no vehicle for the lighter forms of periodical writing; except per-
652 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
haps the Galaxy, which, however, was a newspaper and not a magazine,
and which was now extinct. A new generation had grown up since the
days of the Anthology ; and the opportunity furnished by the new monthly
for the publication of miscellaneous papers, however varied in subject or
style, was not neglected. Mr. Buckingham, in his reminiscences, gives,
among the more or less frequent contributors to the New England Maga-
zine, the names of Edward Everett, Judge Story, Dr. Holmes, Hillard,
Hildreth, Longfellow, Dr. Howe, and Miss H. F. Gould.1 " One dollar a
page," says Buckingham, " was offered for such original communications
as might be accepted and published ; and this, insignificant as the sum may
seem to those whose talents and popularity are in demand at a much higher
price, brought communications from almost every State in the Union." In
1835 the magazine was purchased by Park Benjamin, who, the next year,
united it with the American MontJily Magazine, of New York.
During the years from 1830 to 1840, although the production of literary
works of importance was not very considerable, there was an increasing
activity of mind which was to bear manifest results in succeeding years.
Along-side the growing intellectual cultivation of the people, great social,
moral, and political questions began to agitate the public mind, which were
to temper and shape the literature of the next generation. The tremendous
question of Slavery, feared and hated all over the country, was now rising
steadily into prominence. Of the Antislavery movement, Boston was long the
centre. Such an element in the national politics was a perpetual stimulus
to the best minds of the whole country, but its influence was here especially
strong and pervasive. No department of literature escaped it. The total-
abstinence movement, the reform of diet, the subject of imprisonment for
debt, were topics of less exigency, but which had their share of attention
and discussion.2 The subject of public-school education had been hitherto
more a matter of local pride and self-gratulation than of intelligent study.
It was now to be discussed in a way which left little to be said but much to
be done. In 1837 Horace Mann became Secretary of the Massachusetts
Board of Education ; and in the eleven years during which he held that
position he put forth, in place of the formal and complacent reports which
the incumbents of similar offices are wont to lay before a satisfied public,
a series of formidable documents, which it is safe to say will long remain
unexampled in the records of official literature. No conviction was ever
»
1 This must have been one of the earliest papers was done by lawyers and other men of
periodicals to offer compensation to its writers, education, as a matter of love or political fealty.
Mr. Congdon, in his Reminiscences, says of lit- The first magazines paid nobody; and much
erary remuneration : " Fifty years ago, apart from later there were respectable periodicals which
the money paid to preachers and perhaps the never ran the risk of hurting a young writer's
writers of school-books, there was no such thing, pride by offering him sordid wages. Mr. Willis
I should be surprised to find that Bryant re- was the first magazine writer who was tolerably
ceived any money whatever for 'Thanatopsis,' well paid; at one time, about 1832, he was writ-
which was published in the North American ing four articles monthly for four magazines, and
Review for 1817. Out of Boston in i£:*o I ques- receiving $100 for each " (p. 126).
tion if any Massachusetts editor received so 2 [See Mr. George P. Bradford's chapter, in
much as $500 a year, for most writing in news- Vol. IV. — ED.]
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 653
more firmly rooted in the minds of the people of Massachusetts than that
of the excellence of their public school system and the efficiency of its
administration. But no system of public administration, however excellent,
was ever without abuses. Mann spent fifteen hours a day in travelling up
and down over the State, — making himself acquainted with the schools,
the studies pursued in them, the competency of the teachers, and the prog-
ress of the scholars ; collecting information of the condition and efficiency
of about three thousand different public schools and several hundred private
schools and academies ; : and whenever an abuse, whether little or large, fell
under his eye, it was proclaimed without reserve and without mercy. But
this severity was in the interest of the public whom he served, and was but
the logical and necessary outcome of enthusiasm in his work, which alone
could have carried him at once through the prodigious labors and the em-
bittered personal controversies in which it involved him. His reports are
treatises on almost every subject which bears even remotely on the main
topic. In the very first of those reports he thus states the divisions into
which the general topic had arranged itself in his mind: I. The number
and condition of school-houses; 2. The manner in which school committee-
men discharge their duties; 3. The interest felt by the community in the
education of all its children; 4. The competency of teachers. In con-
sidering the first of these divisions, he discovered at once that it would
carry him far beyond reasonable limits, and he therefore laid it aside and
submitted later, as a supplementary report, a careful essay on the planning
of school-houses, illustrated with numerous plans. His observations of the
incompetency of the teachers in most of the schools, — an incompetency
arising in most cases, not so much from inability as from lack of training, —
led him to recommend the immediate establishment of normal schools to
provide the training needed ; a recommendatign which was at once carried
into effect. His reports were commonly accompanied with letters from
scientific or medical experts, sustaining or elaborating some important point
upon which he perhaps anticipated objections. Letters from Dr. S. G.
Howe, Dr. James Jackson, Dr. S. B. Wood, and others appear in these
documents, which are in themselves valuable contributions to the public
knowledge in the matters of detail of which they treat. I must not be
tempted into even a brief review of the services of this admirable public
character; that belongs to another chapter: but any account of the literary
achievements of Boston would be ludicrously incomplete which should fail
to take account of the intellectual vigor, the mastery of subject, and the
terseness and polish of style which distinguish these remarkable reports.2
The literature of Germany was now beginning to exert a manifest
influence on studious minds in New England. Among the scholars of a
generation before, a knowledge of Latin and Greek was far more common
than a knowledge of French and German. And long after French became
a matter of course, the great German writers remained practically unknown
1 First Report, 1838. * [See Mr. Dillaway's chapter in Vol. IV. — ED.]
654 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
on these shores. As early as 1824, indeed, George Bancroft, newly re-
turned from the schools and the scholars of Germany, had published in the
North American Review translations of the minor poems of Schiller and
Goethe. But we find no further indication of interest in this direction until
1831, when a professorship of German language and literature was created
at Harvard College. The place was fortunately filled by the appointment of
Charles Pollen, who, upon assuming the duties of his office, delivered an
inaugural address, setting forth the high and varied character of the litera-
ture of Germany, as well as its strong claims on the attention of readers in
America. During the next year Professor Pollen delivered a course of
public lectures in Boston on Schiller. In 1833 Andrews Norton and Charles
Folsom established the Select Journal of Foreign Periodical Literature, in
which papers appeared on Goethe, Fichte, Jean Paul, and Heine. Papers
began to appear also, from time to time, in the Christian Examiner, by
P. H. Hedge, George Ripley, Theodore Parker,. and others, on Schiller,
Swedenborg, Herder, Strauss, Schelling, and Kant.
Such articles of Carlyle and Coleridge as found their way to this country
greatly helped on the growing appreciation of German writers, until it
seemed for a time as if the long-cherished English models, upon which the
early literature of the country had been exclusively fashioned, were to be
superseded by this new and strong Teutonic influence. " What work nobler,"
said many enthusiastic students in the words of Carlyle, " than transplant-
ing foreign thought into the barren domestic soil?"
It was under such conditions that there grew up in Boston a little coterie
of literary persons, not all producers of literature, in whom a lively dissatis-
faction with the too practical and unimaginative life of the little Xc\v
England city, not yet quite emancipated from the joyless traditions of its
founders, was mingled with a somewhat indefinite notion of the processes
by which the better life might be achieved. They have left plentiful testi-
mony concerning their attitude towards the prevailing conditions, and their
desires and hopes of amelioration.
" Transcendentalism," says W. H. Channing, " was an assertion of the
inalienable integrity of man, of the immanence of divinity in instinct. On
the somewhat stunted stock of Unitarianism, whose characteristic dogma
was trust in individual reason as correlative to supreme wisdom, had been
grafted German idealism as taught by masters of most different schools, —
by Kant and Jacobi, Fichte and Novalis, Schelling and Hegel, Schleier-
macher and DeWette; by Madame de Stael, Cousin, Coleridge, and Carlyle;
and the result was a vague, yet exalting conception of the godlike nature
of the human spirit." J
" They see," said Margaret Fuller, " that political freedom does not
necessarily produce liberality of mind ; nor freedom in church institutions,
vital religion. And seeing that these changes cannot be wrought from with-
out inward, they are trying to quicken the soul, that they may work from
1 Memoir of Margaret Fuller; vol. ii. p. 12.
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 655
within outward. Disgusted with the vulgarity of a commercial aristocracy,
they become radicals ; disgusted with the materialistic working of rational
religion, they become mystics. They quarrel with all that .is, because it is
not spiritual enough."
The first public utterances of the new faith were in three remarkable
addresses by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Two of these — read, the one before
the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, in July, 1837; the other a year
later, before the literary societies of Dartmouth College — are substantially
identical in subject; both treating of the opportunities, the resources, priv-
ileges, and duties of the American scholar ; summoning, as with the blast of
a trumpet, the thinking man of the New World to come out from the empty
ways of classic and European tradition, and take his rightful place at the
head of the tumultuous army of workers. The scholar must live not alone
in the world of books, but in the world of men. " Inaction is cowardice,
and there can be no scholar without the heroic mind." He must study and
guide the life of to-day, not overvaluing the methods of the past. " Our
day of dependence, our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands,
draws to a close. Neither Greece nor Rome, nor the three unities of
Aristotle, nor the three kings of Cologne, nor the College of the Sorbonne,
nor the Edinburgli Reviciv, is to command any longer." He must trust
his own intuitions, his own insight. " Let him not quit his belief that a
pop-gun is a pop-gun, though the ancient and honorable of the earth
affirm it to be the crack of doom ! " He must be free and brave. " Fear
is a thing which the scholar, by his very function, puts behind him. Fear
always springs from ignorance." He must respect himself and his calling,
despising alike the praise and the blame of men. " How mean to go blaz-
ing, a gaudy butterfly, in fashionable or political saloons, the fool of society,
the fool of notoriety, a topic for newspapers, a piece of the street, and
forfeiting the real prerogative of the russet coat, the privacy and the true
and warm heart of the citizen ! " " Fatal to the man of letters, fatal to man,
is the lust of display, the seeming that unmakes our being."
This was high teaching, unexampled in quality and force in the litera-
ture of college festivals. The third address applied the same principles to
the test, not of the scholar, but of the preacher. This was the memorable
address to the graduating class of the Divinity School at Cambridge, in the
midsummer of 1838, of which the accents still linger in the ears that listened
to it. The principles insisted on in the two discourses above spoken of, as
necessary to the true scholar, are here insisted on with even loftier elo-
quence as vital to the true preacher, — sincerity, truth, courage, and a
serene faith in the divine order of creation which provides that all the forces
of Nature work with him who honestly endeavors. " Whilst a man seeks
good ends, he is strong by the whole strength of Nature." " Character is
always known; thefts never enrich; alms never impoverish; murder will
speak out of stone walls. The least admixture of a lie — for example, the
taint of vanity, any attempt to make a good impression, a favorable appear-
656 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
ance — will instantly vitiate the effect. But speak the truth, and all Nature
and all spirits help you with unexpected furtherance. Speak the truth, and
all things, alive or brute, are vouchers ; and the very roots of the grass
underground there do seem to stir and move to bear you witness."
These noble discourses, in which the elevation of thought is matched by
the vigor and picturesqueness of style, determined the position of Mr.
Emerson, not only as the leader of the Transcendentalists, but as the head
of the literary class in this country. How steadily he has maintained that
position through all the mental growth and development of forty years need
not here be told. The first series of his collected essays was published in
1841 ; the second series in 1844. A volume of poems appeared in 1847.
More than any other writer who has permanently enriched our literature,
Mr. Emerson's relations with the public have been those of personal teach-
ing. By far the greater portion of his writings have been first read from
the lyceum platform; but the lecture — which more than any other form of
literary work, if we except the sermon, tempts to diffuseness, to inaccu-
racy, to commonplace — has never carried him beyond the temperance and
concentration of his earlier academic addresses.
Among the earnest men and women who welcomed the " new views,"
perhaps there was no one who did more to stimulate their growth and,
however indirectly, to promote their diffusion than Margaret Fuller. She
wrote little for the printer,
£, ^^^ s^~) j^^^' but the testimony to her in-
*— < <&^&C ' &**C*«*^C.*^1i^9~f spiring influence in teach-
ing, in correspondence,
and in conversation above all, is abundant and unanimous. Her studies of
German literature had begun in 1832, or thereabout, under the influence
of Carlyle's papers in Frazcr's Magazine, and elsewhere. In 1839 she pub-
lished a translation of Eckermann's Conversations with GoetJie; and, two
years later, a portion of the letters of Gunderode and Bettine.1 When, in
1840, the Transcendentalists had got so far as to desire an organ through
which they could give a readier and wider publicity to their views than
they were likely to attain through any of the established and more conser-
vative periodicals, Miss Fuller was looked to on all sides to become the
editor of the new journal. Mr. Emerson's account of the origin and career
of the Dial is at once so concise and so comprehensive that I cannot do
better than cite it here : —
" This work, which when it began concentrated a good deal of hope and affection,
had its origin in a club of speculative students, who found the air in America getting a
little close and stagnant ; and the agitation had perhaps the fault of being too secondary
or bookish in its origin, or caught, not from primary instincts, but from English and still
more from German books. The journal was commenced with much hope and liberal
promises of many co-operators ; but the workmen of sufficient culture for a political
and philosophical magazine were too few ; and as the pages were filled by unpaid
1 [See chapters by Mr. Bradford and Mrs. Cheney in Vol. IV. — ED.]
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 657
contributors, each of whom had, according to the usage and necessity of this country,
some paying employment, the journal did not get his best work, but his second-best.
. . . For these reasons it never had a large circulation, and was discontinued after
four years. But the Dial betrayed, through all its juvenility, timidity, and conven-
tional rubbish, some sparks of the true love and hope, and of the piety and spiritual
law which had moved its friends and founders ; and it was received by its. early sub-
scribers with almost a religious welcome. Many years after it was brought to a close,
Margaret was surprised in England by very warm testimony to its merits ; and in 1848
the writer -of these pages found it holding the same affectionate place in many a
private book-shelf in England and Scotland which it had secured at home. Good or
bad, it cost a good deal of precious labor from those who served it, and from Margaret
most of all." 1
The contents of the first number of the Dial for January, 1841, are hardly
less interesting to-day than they were forty years ago. The address " from
the Editors to the Reader," with which it opened, was by Mr. Emerson, and
was a strong and stirring statement of the motives which urged the founders
of the new journal. " They have obeyed with great joy the strong current
of thought and feeling which for a few years past has led many sincere per-
sons in New England to make new demands upon literature, and to repro-
bate that rigor of our conventions of literature and education which is
turning us to stone, which renounces hope, which looks only backward,
which asks only such a future as the past, which suspects improvement, and
holds nothing in so much horror as new views and the dreams of youth."
Margaret Fuller contributed " A short essay on Critics " and an account of
a recent exhibition of Allston's pictures ; Theodore Parker, a paper on
"The Divine Presence in Nature and the Soul; " George Ripley, a review
of Brownson's writings ; W. H. Channing, a psychological study called
" Ernest the Seeker; " Bronson Alcott, a heterogeneous collection of
" Orphic Sayings ; " J. S. Dwight, a paper on " The Religion of Beauty "
and a brief review of " ThQ. Concerts of the past Winter; " and Mr. William
1). Wilson, a notice of Channing's translation of Jouffroy. The poetry of
the number included " The Problem," by Mr. Emerson, and lesser poems
by Thoreau, C. P. Cranch, and Charles Emerson. Few magazines, we
imagine, have set out for their readers a more inviting table.
Of the Dial writers, the greater part were little given to frequent pub-
lishing. Mr. Emerson, writing slowly, has in the course of a generation
happily accumulated a considerable body of enduring literature. Mr.
Alcott, after his Conversations witli CJiildren, published in 1836, and the
little volume on Spiritual Culture, printed little or nothing until the
Atlantic offered him, twenty years later, the opportunity of publishing such
fragmentary and miscellaneous reflections as he was fond of putting forth.
Margaret Fuller's fame rests not so much on her books, Summer on the
Lakes, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, or her letters to the Tribune, as
on the traditions of her extraordin^y conversation, her insatiable appetite
1 Memoir of Margaret Fuller, i. 323.
VOL. III. — 83.
658 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
for knowledge and study, and her personal influence over all who were
brought into her society. Thoreau, indeed, did not disdain, in spite of
his small opinion of his fellow-men, to set down his impressions of Nature
for their edification ; and his books are characteristic of his most eccentric
and non-conforming disposition. His Record of a Week on the Concord and
Merrimack Rivers and Walden, or Life in the Woods, both published eight
or ten years after the experiences which they describe, were all that he him-
self sent to the press ; but from his manuscripts his friends were able to
prepare and publish after his death several volumes, to the first of which,
Excursions in Field and Forest, Mr. Emerson prefixed a tender and enthusi-
astic memoir of his friend. The Maine Woods and Cape Cod are interesting
additions to a list of writings which only partially reveal a soul of singular
and fascinating individuality.
Transcendentalism had its day and passed. Ardently believed in and
upheld by the little band of the faithful, a target for much good-natured
raillery from the unregenerate, in no great time it ceased to be proclaimed.
Perhaps its atmosphere was a little thin and chill for the sustenance of a
hard-working New England community; but the ideas and sentiments of
the Transcendentalists were neither abandoned nor lost sight of, and their
mark was long visible in the literature, the theology, the politics, and the
art of New England.1
Literary production was now visibly increasing, and the distribution of
books was accomplished to an extent not before known through the
medium of circulating libraries. Another important medium of communi-
cation between the writer and the public now comes into prominence. The
lecture system, instantly successful in the cities, was swiftly extended
through the country, until no considerable town could afford to be without
its annual course of lectures extending more or less through the winter
months, and enlisting the aid of writers more *r less famous according^to
the resources of the place. The Lowell Institute of Boston, inaugurated on
the first of December, 1839, by an address from Edward Everett, has main-
tained to this day from six to ten courses of lectures every year, in which
many of the most eminent men of this country and England, in literature,
science, and theology, have read careful essays on almost every conceivable
topic related to those departments.2 " It has been ascertained," said Mr.
Everett in the opening address above alluded to, " that twenty-six courses
were delivered in Boston during the last season, not including those which
consisted of less than eight lectures. . . . These lectures were attended in
the aggregate by about thirteen thousand five hundred persons, at an ex-
pense of less than twelve thousand dollars. This is probably a greater
1 [The reader may compare a parallel view living and believing, and so a good counterpart
of the rise and decline of Transcendentalism in to the present sketch. — ED.]
Mr. George P. Bradford's continuation of Dr. 2 [See an account of the Institute in Mr. Dill-
Ripley's chapter on " Philosophic Thought in away's chapter on " Education," etc., in Boston,
Boston," in Vol. IV., treated in its relation to in Vol. IV. — ED.]
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 659
number of lectures than was ever delivered in any previous year, but the
number of courses has been steadily increasing from the time of their first
commencement on the present footing, about twenty years ago. " 1
The lecture system, in its best estate an admirable educational instrument,
has been subject to dreadful abuse. The unbounded appetite of the New
England communities for this form of intellectual nourishment has tempted
vast hordes of charlatans and pretenders to try their fortunes in this profit-
able field. " The hungry sheep look up and are not fed." The pay of the
lecturer has grown more exorbitant in proportion to the dilution of his
mixture, until professional jokers have usurped the places once graced by
philosophers and poets ; and to-day the lyceums are served by a new species
of broker, who ekes out the failing literary material with the better enter-
tainment of music and play-acting.
But the lecture has been, and perhaps will yet be again, of immense value
in the education of the people, — less perhaps by the actual communication
of knowledge, which is too easily taken in to be long remembered, than by
cultivating a general taste for it, and by pointing out the avenues to it.
The extent of the influence exerted year after year by the popular lectures
of Agassiz, in diffusing among the people not only a knowledge and com-
prehension of the elementary facts of those branches of natural science
which he had made his own, but a taste and inclination for serious study in
them, cannot be estimated. The extent of the influence of Mr. Emerson on
the tone of public opinion and sentiment in New England is to be best
conceived when we remember that his delightful and ennobling lectures
were read, winter after winter, to audiences composed by no means chiefly of
scholars and highly cultivated persons, but of earnest people in the common
walks of life, who loved to sweeten their unromantic lives with such enter-
tainment. For ten years the lectures of Theodore Parker varied in number
from forty to eighty during the season.2
1 These figures were taken from Horace western lecture tours, he writes thus : " This
Mann's third report as secretary of the Massa- business of lecturing is an original contrivance
chusetts Board of Education, which further adds, for educating the people. The world has noth-
" that in the State of Massachusetts, outside of ing like it. In it are combined the best things
Suffolk County, there were found in operation of the church (i.e., the preaching) and of the col-
one hundred and thirty-seven lyceums, etc., lege (/'. e., the informing thought) with some of
maintaining annual courses, at which the aver- the fun of the theatre. Besides, it gives the
age attendance for the year had been thirty-two 'rural districts' a chance to see the men they
thousand six hundred and ninety-eight." Mr. read about ; to see the lions, — for the lecture
Mann adds this remark : " It has often been re- is also a show to the eyes. Now I think this
peated by numerous and accurate observers that one of the most admirable means of educat-
in the city of Boston the general topics of con- ing the people. For ten years past, six or
versation, and the mode of treating them, have eight of the most progressive and powerful
been greatly improved since what may be called minds in America have been lecturing fifty to a
the reign of popular lectures." — Report of Secre- hundred times in the year. Surely some must
tary of Board of Education, 1839, p. 74. dance after so much piping, and that of so mov-
2 Mr. Parker has left us the most emphatic ing a sort !" Feb. II, 1858, Mr. Parker writes
judgment as to the value of the lecture system to S. J. May : " This has been a stupid winter
to the mental development of the people. In a to me. I have less than half my old joyous
letter dated " Northern New York, railroad cars, power of work. I have lectured seventy-three
March 12, 1857," during the last of his great times, always close at hand, and have done for
660 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
A curious instance of the. mental activity which was generated in the
days of the Transcendental movement is furnished by the erratic career
of Orestes A. Brownson, who, having been reared among the influences of a
rigid Presbyterianism, had freed himself from them when he came to man's
estate, and had gone, as so often happens, to the other extreme of general
negation. From this dismal condition he shortly emerged as a Unitarian,
taking, some years later, the charge of an independent religious society in
Boston. He had the restless energy, the personal independence, and dis-
like of personal accountability which belong to the free-lance in literature;
and he added to this a mind unusually well equipped for polemical dis-
cussion and philosophic inquiry. He had been a frequent writer in the
Christian Examiner, but he chafed under the mildest editorial control; and
in 1838 established, with characteristic confidence, a review of his own, the
Boston Quarterly Review, which he maintained almost 'single-handed for
five years.1 In 1842 Mr. Brownson united his Quarterly with the Democratic
Rcricw of New York, of which he became an editor; but the connection
proved to be neither congenial nor profitable, and in less than two years he
returned to Boston and established a new personal organ under the title of
Brownson 's Quarterly Review. The philosophic radicalism of the old organ
had now yielded to a reactionary influence which had carried Mr. Brownson
at a bound all the way from rationalism to Romanism, and the old allies
were now targets for the sharpest arrows of the new and zealous convert.
The Quarterly was maintained with unabated vigor, and still with scarcely
any assistance from other writers, until 1864, and was so far from exhaust-
ing the productive ability of its extraordinary conductor that he found time
m
to write and publish a succession of books on various subjects of a philo-
sophic character, of which some were in the form of novels, and others in
the more usual guise of a learned treatise, but all displaying in full measure
the vivacity and mental resource which had marked his earlier writings. In
1873 he recommenced the Review, but his death, two years later, put a final
stop to it.
The study of German literature, once effectively introduced among us,
became rapidly, as a matter of course, a part of every educational scheme
which pretended to comprehensiveness. For some years, however, the
reading in this language was mostly confined to the poets. In 1848 Fred-
erick H. Hedge published in an octavo volume a collection of extracts
from the Prose Writers of Germany, including, besides Goethe and Schiller,
many writers now familiar enough in this country, but of whom at that time
little more was known than the names. Kant, Lessing, Wieland, Jean Paul,
the season. Last year I lectured eighty times, sectarian interests, and called for by no motives
all the way from the Mississippi to the Penob- but the inward promptings of the author's n\vn
scot." soul. . . . The best indication of the culture of
1 Of this work Mr. Ripley said in the Dial : philosophy in this country, and the application
" This journal stands alone in the history of of its speculative results to the theory of relig-
periodical works. It was undertaken by a single ion, the criticism of literary productions, and the
individual, without the co-operation of friends, institutions of society, we presume no one will
with no external patronage, supported by no dispute, is to be found in this journal."
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS.
66 I
Hegel, Fichte, Schlegel, Tieck, Novalis, Hoffman, and others were repre-
sented by selections more or less ample, accompanied with brief biograph-
ical notices ; and the work was not only an interesting and valuable addition
to the libraries of readers, but had a sensible influence in widening the
range and confirming the taste for German studies.
The next year after the publication of Dr. Hedge's German selections
appeared the History of Spanish Literature, by Mr. George Ticknor, — a
scholarly and conscientious work, and a monument of persistent and long
continued labor, but dealing with a literature for the most part not only
1 [This statuette of Mr. Ticknor, made by selecting the motto. It was made in 1868. It is
Mr. Martin Milmore "as a compliment and ex- shown on a table in his library, in the engraving
pression of gratitude " (Life, Letters, and Journals on the next page. A life-size bust of Mr. Tick-
of Gco. Ticknor, ii. 492), is inscribed : " Aet. Suae, nor, likewise by Milmore, was presented to the
Ixxvii. Libris semper amicis," — Mr. Ticknor Boston Public Library in 1868. — ED.]
662
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
MR. TICKNOR S LIBRARY
unknown, but singularly undeserving of attention amid the multitude of
more important claims.
There is something pathetic in the confidence with which, at intervals of
a few years, some earnest soul, or perhaps a group of them, sets on foot a
new periodical ; starting forth with a full stock of enthusiasm and a com-
fortable pile of contributed material of just the required stamp, only to
repeat, after a declining volume or two, the dismal story, — of enthusiasm
1 [This cut follows a photograph taken
since Mr. Ticknor's death, kindly lent by Mrs.
Ticknor. The house in its present condition is
shown in an engraving of Park Street, given in
Mr. Bugbee's chapter in this volume ; and also,
as it stood a few years after its erection, in the
heliotype given in Mr. Stanwood's chapter in
Vol. IV. Of the above view Mr. Ticknor's
daughter has furnished, by request, the following
description : —
" The portrait over the fireplace is that of
Sir Walter Scott, painted by Leslie for my
father, mentioned in the Life, Letters, etc. of G.
Ticknor, vol. i. pp. 388, 389, and 407 ; and also
in Leslie's Reminiscences. The books visible in
the cases, on the left of the spectator, are, suc-
cessively, o£ German, French, and English lit-
erature, until the press next the fireplace is
reached, which contains works on history. Be-
tween the fireplace and window are works of
biography and theology. The cupboards below
are all filled with books.
" The large chair by the fireplace, on the right
of the spectator, is that in which Mr. Ticknor
habitually sat.
"The appearance of the room, as seen in this
view, is absolutely the same as when he was liv-
ing, except for the addition of one or two small
pieces of furniture. The Spanish" books, re-
moved after Mr. Ticknor's death, occupied the
whole end of the room opposite the fireplace ;
and their places have been filled by Greek,
Latin, Italian, and other books, which had at
different times been crowded out and exiled to
another part of the house." — ANNA ELIOT
TICKNOR, June, 1881.— ED.]
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 663
quenched by hard work and lack of support, and of contributions labori-
ously extorted from indifferent or reluctant friends, and perhaps not of just
the required stamp any longer. The Dial kept itself alive for four years.
While it was yet comparatively prosperous, in 1842 a new magazine was
established, called the Boston Miscellany of Literature and Fashion. Its
editor was Nathan Hale, Jr., who drew contributions from Dr. Chan-
ning, Alexander H. Everett, Edward Everett, Nathaniel Hawthorne, W. W.
Story, J. R. Lowell, N. P. Willis, and many others. A charming periodical
was the result, which did not survive its first year.
After the discontinuance of the Dial, some of its most eminent support-
ers and contributors, chief among whom was George Ripley, the head of
the Brook Farm Community, devised a new journal, — half magazine, half
newspaper, — to take up, in some sort, its work as an organ of advanced
thought. The new journal was called the Harbinger, a large octavo of
sixteen pages, " published by the Brook Farm Phalanx " once a week at
Boston and New York, and with an admirable list of writers, nearly equally
divided between the two cities, including the names of Ripley, W. H.
Channing, G. W. Curtis, Lowell, Whittier, Story, Horace Greeley, J.S. Dwight,
and many more. Mr. Francis G. Shaw's translation of Consnelo was printed
in the Harbinger, beginning in the first number of the paper. Attractions
enough were here combined to have secured for the paper a long, prosper-
ous, and useful existence. It was not too philosophic or too aggressive to
commend itself to steady-going people who still held by the old ways,
while its tone was thoroughly liberal, earnest, and progressive ; but it was
discontinued at the end of the fifth year.1
The last attempt at establishing a journal in the interest at once of good
letters and of reform was the work chiefly of Theodore Parker, who in 1846
had taken charge of the society in Boston, and found his influence necessarily
much enlarged by the change. Mr. Parker had never been a contributor
to the North American Review, and that journal, under the management
of Francis Bowen, was then in its most conservative phase. To the Cliris-
tian Examiner he had been a frequent and welcome contributor ; but the
Examiner was a theological1 review, published in the interest of a sect, and
that sect one of the least numerous of all. It was felt by Mr. Parker, as
well as by many other scholars of liberal instincts, that the condition of the
country was such as ought to receive more attention and sterner comment
than any existing review would admit to its pages. " We want a tremen-
dous journal," said Parker, " with ability in its arms and piety in its heart.
It should be literary, philosophical, poetical, theological ; above all human,
— human even to divinity. I think we may find help in unexpected
quarters."* Many conferences were held with Emerson, Dr. Howe, J. E.
Cabot, and other friends ; and the first number of the Massachusetts Quar-
terly Review appeared in December, 1847. Mr. Emerson wrote the editor's
address, as he had done seven years before for the Dial ; but in the tone
1 [See Mr. Bradford's chapter in Vol. IV. — ED.]
664 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
of the two addresses there is a difference as wide as in the motives of the
two journals. The new review was certainly not " secondary or bookish in
its origin ; " and its inspiration was very clearly " caught from primary
instincts." The ambition here was not for culture or self-development, — the
transcendental phraseology was laid aside ; the desire was to move the con-
science and heart of the nation, and awaken them to a more earnest interest
in the national affairs. The overwhelming and stifling materialism of the
people, the brutal and reckless behavior of their chosen rulers, are the
points most strongly emphasized in the address of the new editors. The
war with Mexico was now at its height. " We see that reckless and
destructive fury which characterizes the lower classes of American society,
and which is pampered by hundreds of profligate presses. The young
intriguers who drive in bar-rooms and town-meetings the trade of politics,
sagacious only to seize the victorious side, have put the country into the
position of an overgrown bully ; and Massachusetts finds no heart nor head
to give weight and efficacy to her contrary judgment." A voice must be
raised on behalf of decent government. But politics is not the only im-
portant matter. " A journal that would meet the real wants of this time
must have a courage and power sufficient to solve the problems which the
great, groping society around us, stupid with perplexity, is dumbly explor-
ing. Let it not show its astuteness by dodging each difficult question, and
arguing diffusely every point on which men are long ago unanimous."
Socialism, slavery, the new questions in natural science, the new heresies
in theology, invited candid and fearless discussion. It is praise enough
for the new Review to say that it did not discredit this programme. An
article of great severity on the Mexican War, by Mr. Parker; a paper by
Dr. Howe, on the condition and prospects of Greece; another, by Mr.
Weiss, on the life and writings
of ASassiz> who had Just accept-
ed the Harvard professorship;
and a thoughtful paper by Mr.
/ S/ . /? /" Cabot, on the influence of mod-
Crt/1**^is 6
. V' J< crn civilization on the fine arts,
suggested by Mr. Powers's statue
of the Greek Slave ; with some pages of short reviews and notices, — made up
the opening number. Mr. Parker was from the first, though much against
his wish, the laboring editor, receiving occasional assistance from Wendell
Phillips, Henry James, Edouard Desor, and others, besides those just named
as contributing to the first number. But the usual disappointments of the
editor were not long in arriving. Too large a proportion of the writing fell
upon him for lack of adequate help. Twelve quarterly numbers were
issued, and the undertaking was then reluctantly abandoned.
In the department of history, Boston has contributed to the literature of
the country some works of distinguished excellence. In 1840 the two
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 665
authors who were the first, in later days, to make this department a con-
spicuous one, were already in full career. George Bancroft, in his long and
crowded life, has shown us a remark-
able example of a type not uncommon
in Europe, — the union of the man of
letters with the statesman. He seems
from early youth to have foreseen and
prepared himself for a high career.
Graduating at the age of seventeen he went abroad at once, studying for two
years at Gottingen, and passing several years in alternate study and travel
in Germany, Italy, and France ; enjoying in all those countries, to an unus-
ual extent, the acquaintance and friendship of men of the first eminence
in scholarship, — of Schleiermacher, Wilhelm von Humboldt, and Varn-
hagen von Ensc, in Germany ; Bunsen, Niebuhr, and Manzoni, in Rome ;
Cousin, Benjamin Constant, and Alexander von Humboldt, in Paris. In
Heidelberg he pursued his historical studies with Schlosser. Upon his return
to America he became a frequent contributor to the North American Review,
then under the charge of Jarecl Sparks. In 1823 he published a translation
of Heeren's Politics of Ancient Greece. He was not long in getting at
work on the history which he had early determined to undertake ; but he
worked with patience and deliberation, and it was not until 1834 that his
first volume was ready for publication. The second and third volumes fol-
lowed in 1838 and 1840, while he held the responsible, if not yet exacting,
position of Collector of the port of Boston, — a position which, in the present
days, we should regard as ludicrously incongruous with the quiet prosecu-
tion of literary or historical studies. Aux vaillants cceurs, rien impossible.
Mr. Bancroft's labors on his great work were often interrupted by business
of too great moment to be put by. Successive appointments to high pub-
lic office, while they left him diminished leisure, saved him, perhaps, from
the characteristic defect of the writer who mixes little with men. He was
Secretary of the Navy in 1845 ; and the next year was Minister of the
United States at London, holding this post until 1849. This interval was,
however, of inestimable advantage to him. The public offices, both of Lon-
don and Paris, opened their doors to the American Minister; and, in addi-
tion to the exhaustless records thus made available, immense collections of
letters and manuscripts, which had come down from the English statesmen
of the Revolutionary era and had remained in the possession of their fam-
ilies, were put at his disposal. The fourth volume of the history appeared
in 1852; the fifth and sixth in 1854; bringing the work down to the open-
ing of the Revolution. The period of the war, and the organization of the
government under the Federal Constitution, occupied four volumes more,
of which the last was issued in 1875. Finished under the pressure of
advancing age, the later volumes show no decline in vivacity of style or
strength and firmness of thought.
Four years after Mr. Bancroft published the first volume of his history,
VOL. in. — 84.
666 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
there appeared the first of a series of historical works whose picturesque-
ness and novelty of subject won for them a popularity which no American
work had as yet achieved. The career of William H. Prescott offers, in all
but perseverance and steadfast adherence to a dclib-
erately formed purpose, a strong and pathetic con-
trast to the busy and conspicuous life of Mr. Bancroft.
Graduating in 1814, he spent two years in travel abroad, but without any
special aim beyond diversion and the restoration of his impaired eyesight.
He was strongly interested in French and Italian literature, and made con-
scientious studies in this field, even cherishing at one time, we are told, an
ambition to write a comprehensive history of the literature of one or the
other of those countries ; but the undertaking, on a nearer view, appeared
too great, and was relinquished. The only direct result of his studies in this
direction appeared in some papers contributed chiefly to the North Amer-
ican Review, and which were collected in a volume of Miscellanies, pub-
lished in Boston and London in 1845. He had, however, conceived the
desire to become a historian, and in the absence of strong predilections
appears to have cast about for a subject. An entry in his diary in 1819,
when he was twenty-three years old, shows the deliberation of his purpose.
He there assigns ten years for general preparatory studies, and ten years
more for the composition of the work, whatever it might prove to be. He
made a fortunate choice of subject, in the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella
of Spain, and sent to Madrid for the necessary materials, which, through
the influence of Mr. A. H. Everett, then United States Minister at that
Court, he readily obtained. An imposing mass of manuscripts and printed
works was forwarded to Boston, but found the eager student incapable of
reading so much as a titlepage. The story of the trials by which Mr.
Prescott was beset through his partial blindness, and of the patience, deter-
mination, and ingenuity through which he overcame them, is too familiar
to need repetition. The history^ spite of all obstacles, was published within
the ten years which the writer had assigned for the work, and its reception
was doubtless ample compensation for the fatigues it had cost him. It
was at once republished in London, and translated into French, German,
Spanish, and Italian. Twelve editions have been printed in the United
States, and four in England. Far from resting content with this triumph,
Mr. Prescott set to work without delay upon the history of the Conquest of
Mexico. In this case, as before, he spared himself the labor of personal
research through the state-paper offices, but availed himself of the assist-
ance of willing friends, through whom he received in due time a mass of
documents from the Royal Academy of Madrid, from the family archives
of the descendants of Cortes, and from Mexican sources, covering some
eight thousand folio pages.1 His infirmity of eyesight did not mend, and
he was forced to employ the same methods of reading and writing as in
his first work. Long practice had, however, given facility both to author
1 Griswold's Prose Writers of America.
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS.
667
and secretary. The work was finished in less than five years from its com-
mencement, and was received not less favorably than its predecessor. It
was published in 1843. The third history, the Conquest of Peru, appeared
in 1847, after a still shorter interval. Mr. Prescott then entered on a work
of much greater difficulty. The period of Philip II. was a subject involv-
ing not merely a continuous narrative of successive and obviously connected
events, but the story of vast and obscure complications with almost every
Court in Europe. This was the last great undertaking of Mr. Prescott, and
was destined to remain a fragment. Two volumes were issued in 1855, and
PRESCOTT'S LIBRARY.
a third in 1858; and much had been done on succeeding portions of the
work, when the author's patient labors were brought to a sudden close by
his death, in I859-1
The line of historical writers was worthily continued by Richard Hil-
dreth, who had been one of the contributors to the New England Magazine
in 1832, and who was for some years after that date the successful manager
of the Boston Atlas. In 1840, having retired from that position, he devoted
himself to literature. His productions were, for the most part, in the nature
1 [The tributes published in the Mass. Hist.
Soc. Proc. of that year testify to the honor - in
which he was held. A few years later, in 1864,
appeared a Life of Prescott, prepared by his life-
long friend, George Ticknor. Before beginning
on his Spanish subjects, Prescott had contem-
plated a work on Moliere, and the books he col-
lected, becoming the property of Mr. Ticknor,
were given by him to the Public Library. Mr.
Prescott left by his will the manuscripts collect-
ed for the writing of his Ferdinand and Isabella
to Harvard College Library. After some years
the bulk of his library was sold at public auc-
tion ; but not till the marks of his ownership
had been generally and unfortunately removed.
-ED.]
668 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
of moral or political treatises. Of these, the first to attract general notice
was Despotism in America, a vigorous though temperate and argumentative
arraignment of the system of slavery in the Southern States. In 1844 he
published a purely philosophical treatise called the Theory of Morals,
followed some years later by another on the Theory of Politics. These
works were colored by a more advanced radicalism than had before been
ventured on, except, perhaps, in the columns of the Liberator ; and their
reception by the organs of criticism was surprisingly warm. This was par-
ticularly the case with the Theory of Morals, as to which the North Amer-
ican Retneiv for once joined hands with Brownsons Quarterly in what must
now be admitted to have been not so much criticism as abuse. Mr. Hildreth
now began a comprehensive History of the United States. The work
of Mr. Bancroft had reached its third volume, but was for the time inter-
rupted by the author's official position in London. Mr. Hildreth was not
satisfied with Mr. Bancroft's treatment of some portions of his subject, and
tried his hand at a different plan. Less diffuse in detailed description, less
enthusiastic and demonstrative in his patriotism, Mr. Hildreth passed briefly
over many points on which his predecessor had delighted to linger, while
he gave much attention to certain others which the earlier history had
scarcely touched at all. The work was pursued with steadfast industry.
Three volumes, published in 1849, carried the history as far as the adoption
of the Federal Constitution ; and the remaining three, bringing it down to
the close of Monroe's first term, were completed and issued within three
years from the appearance of the first volume.
In 1851 Mr. Francis Parkman gave to the public the first fruits of his
studies in a field which, lying straight in the path of every historian of the
United States, had hitherto been strangely neglected by them all. The
exploits of the Spanish adventurers and the English settlers had received
abundant attention at various hands; but the story of the determined and
long-continued resistance of the Indian tribes, and of the French attempts
at colonization, North and South, — with the experiences, heroic, pathetic,
fanatic, picturesque, of the religious entrepreneurs, — had been left for the
fortunate hand of a new writer. Mr. Parkman was not an unknown writer.
The admirable papers he had contributed to the Knickerbocker Magazine,
descriptive of his sojourn among the Indian tribes on the plains of the
Platte River, and published later under the title of The Oregon Trail, had
sufficiently introduced him as a vigorous and graceful narrator, possessing
a keen relish for the wholesome and unconventional life of the camp and a
generous sympathy with all forms of simple manliness, without much respect
to race or color. The History -of the Conspiracy of Pontiac was published
in a single octavo volume, and at once attracted much attention, at first
from the unaccustomed subject, and then from the visible merit and value
of the work. Mr. Parkman next occupied himself with the attempts of the
earliest French explorers ; but, working under the disadvantage of a physi-
cal infirmity curiously similar to Mr. Prescott's, a long interval necessarily
THE PRESS. ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 669
elapsed before the first of the series of books was issued which are now so
well known under the comprehensive title of France and England in the
New World; and which embrace under separate titles1 accounts of the
explorations and strifes of the Spaniards and Huguenots in Florida, of
Champlain on the Northern border, of La Salle on the Mississippi, the
missions of Lejeune, Brebceuf, Lallemant, and Jogues on the Great Lakes
and the St. Lawrence, and other phases of French-Canadian history. To
the sombre and depressing details of New England Puritan history these
romantic and picturesque narratives of gallant struggle, of heroic sacrifice,
of steadfast endurance, — the more pathetic because for the most part
futile, — afford a remarkable contrast and relief.
If the literature of Boston is rich in historical works, it is not less rich in
those collections of biographical memoranda, and of the speeches, corre-
spondence, and diaries of public men which furnish the materials for histor-
ical studies. Such collections have, in several instances, been the grateful
work of proud and loving descendants ; but scarcely one of the great men
who have given to Massachusetts her just prominence in the history of the
country has lacked a friend to whom such a task was a pleasure, adding
to the long list of pious memorials, of widely-varying interest and literary
importance, but animated by the same generous motive, — to preserve and
hand down the remembrance of the men who in the stress of angry and
turbulent politics have kept the faith, that their successors may not be
without the benefit of their example. Thus, in 1809, the works of Fisher
Ames were brought together and published, with a brief memoir, within a
year of his death ; but not so completely but that his son, Seth Ames, was
able, forty-five years after, to make a much more perfect collection, includ-
ing a considerable part of the correspondence of that eminent' statesman.
Thus William Tudor published, in 1823, his Life of James Otis ; and J. T.
Austin, five years later, his Life of El bridge Gerry. Thus Josiah Quincy, in
1825, published the Life of his father, Josiah Quincy, Jr., of Revolutionary
fame; and William W. Story, in 1851, the Life and Letters of his father,
Judge Story; and Edmund Quincy, in 1867, the Life of his father, Josiah
Quincy; and Robert C. Winthrop, in 1864, the Life and Letters of John
Winthrop. The Life of John Adams, begun by his son, John Quincy
Adams, was finished by his grandson, Charles Francis Adams, and printed
in the first of ten octavo volumes containing the works and correspond-
ence of the second President, and issued at intervals from 1851 to 1856.
A memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams was written by Josiah
Quincy and published in 1858; but a more detailed account, composed
in great measure of his diary from 1795 until his death in 1848, was com-
piled by Charles Francis Adams, and published in ten volumes from 1874
to 1877. The Life of James Sullivan by Thomas C. Amory; the Life of
Samuel Adams by William V. Wells ; of Joseph Warren by Richard Froth-
1 Pioneers of France in the New World ; rewritten because of Margry's documentary
Jesuits in North America; Discovery of the publications); Old Regime in the New World;
Great West (later called La Salle, when largely and Frontenac.
670 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
ingham ; of Timothy Pickering by Octavius Pickering and Charles W.
Upham; of Count Rumford by Dr. George E. Ellis, — are later additions.
The orators on the other hand have, for the most part, not waited for
posterity, but have themselves collected and revised their speeches for
publication. A volume of the public addresses of Daniel Webster was
issued as early as 1830, containing
n°ble commemorative addresses at
Plymouth and Bunker Hill, and that
delivered in Faneuil Hall in 1826 on the occasion of the death of Adams
and Jefferson, the great speech in the Senate on Foote's resolution, with
other Congressional speeches, and the famous argument in the trial of
Knapp at Salem. A brief memoir of Webster, written by Edward Everett,
was prefixed to the volume. Other volumes of Mr. Webster's speeches
were issued from time to time during his life, and a complete edition was
in course of publication at the time of his death in 1852.
Of Mr. Everett's orations, a collection in a single volume was published
in 1836, and reprinted, with additions filling a second volume, in 1850. A
third volume was added by Mr. Everett in 1859, and a fourth by his sons
in 1868, the last containing, among others, the remarkable address on the
character of Washington, — remarkable in itself, but even more so in its
extraordinary popularity, the number of its repetitions, and the sums it
was made to yield to a national enterprise which was miserably defeated
after all.
Collections of the speeches of Charles Sumner, of Robert C. Winthrop,
of Wendell Phillips, and other prominent orators, have also been published.
When Mr. Prescott's history of Phillip II. was interrupted by his too
early death, his subject was, to a certain extent, covered by a younger
writer, who, like Prescott himself, had achieved a high place among the
historians by his first work. Mr. John Lothrop Motley's history of The
Rise of the Dutch Republic made its appearance ^
only a year after the first two volumes of Mr. ( l//^. — QL rf-( '
yf /^ / r*- u i *~^y
Prescott's Philip. No portion of the portentous // / (^
reign of that monarch was more important in its
relations to the civilization and welfare of Europe than that which was
occupied by his desperate struggle with the people of Holland, and his
treacherous dealings with the English queens. Of all this the story was as
fully and satisfactorily told from Mr. Motley's point of view as it could have
been from Mr. Prescott's. Mr. Motley had been as fortunate in the advan-
tages he had enjoyed in composing his history as Mr. Prescott had been
unfortunate. His long residence abroad gave him ample opportunity to
use to the fullest the abundant materials which existed at the various courts
of Germany, as well as in Spain, England, and Holland, — some of the most
interesting of which had been but recently brought to light. His use of
this material was not only conscientious but extremely skilful, and gave to
his work a vivacity and human interest of which, until then, the only exam-
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS.
67 1
pie was to be found in the pages of Macaulay. The history, when it ap-
peared in 1856, was a delightful surprise. Its welcome was not less warm
in England and Holland than in the United States. A Dutch translation
was at once prepared, with an introduction by Backhuysen van den Brink.
A French translation followed shortly, with an introduction by Guizot. The
work was also translated into German and Russian. The author went on
1 [This cut follows a portrait by G. Stuart D.D. A view of the monument on his grave in
Newton, painted in 1818 in London, and now Mount Auburn is given in the Harvard Register,
owned by his nephew, the Rev. Edward E. Hale, July, 1881. — ED.]
672 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
with his studies, and published in 1861 two volumes of the History of the
United NctJicrlands, the remaining two volumes of which appeared in 1867,
bringing the history down 'to the recognition of the independence of the
Republic in 1609. The mournful story of the Life and Death of jfo/ui of
Barneveldc, published in 1874, brought the writer to the threshold of the
Thirty Years' War. The history of this dismal period, in which the civil-
ization of Europe seemed about to be obscured, was the difficult labor
which Mr. Motley next proposed to himself. On retiring from the office
of Minister to England in 1870, he took up his residence at The Hague, in
the private villa of the Queen of Holland, and employed himself once more
in the congenial task of collecting and arranging his materials. He was
not, however, destined to publish any portion of the work, which was inter-
rupted by his death in I877.1
The poetical promise discernible in the literature of the second period
was abundantly realized in the third. Mr. Longfellow had published his
Voices of tJie Niglit in 1839. For the next thirty years his poems were issued
with frequency. He has been through life the most industrious and pro-
ductive of all American poets, and both his industry and productiveness
have increased since he has passed the period of middle life, when effort,
unless quickened by the spur of necessity, is apt to slacken. Mr. Long-
fellow's later productions are far more ambitious and labored than his
earlier, and they are also more sombre, — the gentle, pensive sadness of
his earlier verse has deepened its tone. The melancholy of the Christus
and of the New England Tragedies is quite distinct from anything to be
found in his poems prior to 1860. But the minor poems of the later years
have gained greatly in strength of thought and force of expression, while
retaining all the sweetness and tenderness of sentiment which characterize
the earlier poems.
Mr. Emerson's earliest poems enriched the pages of the Dial, but are
preserved in a small volume published in 1847. From time to time, nota-
bly since the establishment of the Atlantic Monthly, specimens of this rare
and thoughtful poetry were given to the public, which received them with
a curious mixture of reverence and amusement, often, it must be confessed,
taking their admirable qualities on trust, but charmed unaffectedly, now
and then, by the commanding beauty and depth of thought. But most of
Mr. Emerson's warmest admirers would doubtless agree with the judgment
of Theodore Parker, that " his best poetry is in his prose, and his poorest,
thinnest, and least musical prose is in his poems." 2
Mr. James Russell Lowell printed his first volume, A Year's Life, in 1841.
His second, A Legend of Brittany, with which were printed some smaller
pieces, — " Rhcecus " among them, — appeared in 1844. The Vision of Sir
1 [The Massachusetts Historical Society a])- and resulted in a separate volume, whose text
pointed Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes to prepare was subsequently abridged for the Society's rec-
the customary memoir for their Proceedings. The ord. See Proceedings, December, 1878. — En.]
subject grew on the friendly biographer's hands, '2 Massachusetts Quarterly Review, March, 1850.
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 673
ZjJfe^db *
A*-^ O-V
THE FIRST DRAFT OF LONGFELLOW'S "EXCELSIOR. *
Launfal, in which the best qualities of Mr. Lowell's genius are visible, was
published in 1848, and was followed within the year by the Fable for Critics
1 [The original of this manuscript, of which and was bequeathed, with his other autographs,
the cut gives but a portion, is written on the back by Mr. Sumner to Harvard College Library. —
of a letter from Charles Sumner to Longfellow, ED.]
VOL. III. — 85.
674 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
and The Bigloiv Papers. The transcendental movement, in which Mr.
Lowell had been somewhat interested, had produced many eccentricities in
its disciples which invited raillery, — and these traits were hit off in the
Fable for Critics with a nimble wit and skilful touch, in which no suspicion
of ill-nature mingled. In the Biglow Papers a new vein was opened. The
speech of the Yankee on his native heath might be picturesque, but had
J
^
never been called poetic. Mr. Lowell, in these papers, married it to immor-
tal verse, and used it with great effect in satire, in denunciation, in warning,
in pathetic appeal, to move the heart of the people to indignation and
shame against the Mexican War and the schemes of the slave-power. A
second series of " Biglow Papers," mostly contributed to the Atlantic Mont lily
during the Rebellion, satirized with righteous severity the politics of that
period, but the old vein was not to be re-opened with success. In 1869 a
volume of collected poems was issued, called Under the Willows, which in-
cluded most of the verses which had appeared in the magazines of the
past ten years; and with them the noble ode spoken at the Harvard Com-
memoration, in 1865, of those of her sons who had fallen in the war of the
Rebellion. The style of Mr. Lowell's later poems shows, generally speak-
ing, a distinct loss of simplicity. Some of them are marked by an involved
complexity of style, amounting even to obscurity, and which suggests the
influence of Browning.
Oliver Wendell Holmes1 was in 1830, while an undergraduate at Har-
vard, a contributor of verses to a magazine of light literature, maintained
wholly by the students, and called the Collegian. For this magazine he
wrote some twenty-five pieces, mostly running over with extravagant fun,
but showing the turn for easy and graceful versification which has distin-
guished his more deliberate productions. Most of these juvenile pieces have
been abandoned to oblivion by the author; but some few examples of them,
as " Evening by a Tailor," " The Meeting of the Dryads," "The Spectre Pig,"
and others, have been admitted to a place among his acknowledged works.
1 [There is a portrait and sketch of Dr. Holmes in the Harvard Register, April, 1881. — ED.]
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 675
On the establishment of the New England Magazine in 1831, Mr. Holmes,
then studying law, became a frequent contributor of verses, generally of much
the same character as those in the Collegian. In 1836 these pieces, with oth-
ers, including a poem read before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge,
called Poetry, a Metrical Essay, were published in a volume. This was the
beginning of a brilliant career. Dr. Holmes's occasional poems, read before
societies on anniversary days, at public dinners, and wherever men have
met together for enjoyment or commemoration, have been more numerous
and more admired than those of any other poet. To strike exactly the right
note, to hit and emphasize just the emotion of the hour, be it grave or gay,
to say the very word that every man at the table or on the benches would
say if he could ; and to say it with a turn of grace, a sparkle, a spirit which
moved serious men to laughter, or frivolous men to tears, — this has been
the felicity of Dr. Holmes. Most of his poems for the last quarter of a
century have been first printed in the Atlantic McntJdy.
In 1840 Mr. Whittier, having exercised himself in a variety of situations,
— as farmer, shoemaker, editor at Boston, at Hartford, at Philadelphia; and
having already been a
contributor of prose and
verse to newspapers and
periodicals in all those
cities, and published two
or three small volumes
of poetry, — abandoned
the active walks of business, and fixed his residence at Amesbury, on
the banks of the Merrimack. From this calm retreat he sent forth, mostly
through the columns of the National Era, published at Washington, the
vigorous and stirring Antislavery poems by which he became most widely
known. He had been greatly moved by the brave crusade of Garrison, and
was early enrolled among the active and avowed adherents of the Antislavery
movement. His poems against slavery took a more fiery and aggressive
tone about the time of the Mexican War, and several of the pieces inspired
by that nefarious enterprise remain to this day unsurpassed in eloquence
and vigor of denunciation, not unrelieved by the truest pathos. This is one
side of Whittier's nature, the side earliest known by the public. There was
another side, not less remarkable and more fully represented at a later
period, of which the main feature is a genuine love of Nature and a keen
appreciation and sympathy for every aspect in which she shows herself to
the New England eye. The fields and woods, the rocks and streams of his
native State, — her ice and snows as well, — are to him a constantly inspir-
ing theme ; and not less so are the homely virtues, the artless graces, the
latent heroism of her sons and daughters. Snow-Bound, Maud Mutter, The
Barefoot Boy, In School- Days, are instances not more marked than scores of
others of this warmth of loyal affection. The first collection of his poems
was published in 1838, but his productiveness increased with -his years, and
676 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
was greatest at about and after the close of the Rebellion. " Eight volumes
of poems," says the memoir in Duyckinck's Cyclopaedia, " were added by
Mr. Whittier to his works in as many years (1864—72), one of which was a
series of selections."
To account for all the poets in a community where no man with pre-
tensions to the calling of a man of letters thinks his position assured without
at least an occasional copy of verses, would here be impossible. Among
the writers less known than those above noticed, are Thomas William Par-
sons and William W. Story. Born in the same year, the latter put forth a
small volume of poems in 1847, tne former in 1854. Mr. Parsons had,
however, published ten years before his translation of the first ten cantos
of Dante's Inferno, whose excellence had attracted the attention of scholars.
His careful and continued study of Dante had colored visibly the style of
all his minor works, the best of which are marked by reserve and purity of
expression, and by gravity of thought and feeling. They exhibit, however,
a certain narrowness of range and restricted sympathies ; while the verses
of Story are the recreations of a busy man, versatile and unequal, much more
varied in style and subject than those of Parsons, with the animation and
interest which come of various relations and pursuits.
In fiction, beyond the pleasant stories of Miss Sedgwick and Mrs. Child,
and the Eastern tales of William Ware, little had been done which retains a
place in New England literature until the publication, in 1843, of Sylvester
Judd's remarkable story of Margaret, — a production in its main features so
genuine that to the present day it holds the place which Mr. Lowell assigned to
it a few years after its first appearance, as " the most emphatically American
book ever written." Nobody has ever caught more exactly the spirit, at once
grim and humorous, of New England country life, before its hardships were
mitigated by a measure of material prosperity and by emancipation from
priestly rule and the superstitions which accompanied it. Nobody has ever
more lovingly observed or more accurately described the natural aspect of
the New England summer and winter, and its influence on the character
and temperament of the inhabitants. The book is often crude, extrava-
gant, repelling; but its charm is neither to be denied nor resisted.
Three years after the publication of Margaret, a yet more remarkable
story appeared. The name of Nathaniel Hawthorne had been slowly grow-
ing familiar to a
limited circle of
' readers through
.« rr* • *-r- t j
the Iwice 1 old
Tales, of which a portion had been collected and published in 1837, and a
second series in 1842 ; but which, keenly appreciated by a few, had left the
author, as he has himself remarked, "the obscurest man of letters in America."
" These stories were published in magazines and annuals, extending over a
period of ten or twelve years, and comprising the whole of the writer's
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 677
young manhood, without making (so far as he has ever been aware) the
slightest impression on the public."
With the appearance of The Scarlet Letter, in 1846, Mr. Hawthorne found
himself promptly raised to as much conspicuousness as the most exacting
author could desire. Criticism was silenced. Here was a book as faithful
to a single phase of the New England character as Judd's had been, but
informed with an imagination and creative power quite new in American
literature. With a subject as sombre and revolting as any in the whole
range of modern fiction, with a succession of incidents and experiences
scarcely relieved by so much as a gleam of human joy or mental health,
this story, like all which followed it from the same hand, but more strongly
than any other, impresses the reader with a certain uneasy sense of a preter-
natural influence about him, yet an influence from which he is by no means
anxious to escape. The author seems to have fixed on the dark ages of New
England history a gaze so intense, an attention so profound and searching,
as to have pierced the veil of the past, and to have seen " the very age and
body of the time." This makes the commanding power of the book ; its
charm lies in the air of poetry and mystery with which the characters of the
story are invested, and in the incomparable beauty of the style. Here, one
would say, are all the essential elements of true poetry, — creative imagina-
tion, the poetic atmosphere, and exquisiteness of expression. These qualities,
it is no exaggeration to say, exist in a more eminent degree in the works of
Hawthorne than in any American poetry either before or since his time.
The works which followed The Scarlet Letter, — - The House of the
Seven Gables ; Tlie BlitJiedale Romance ; The Marble Faun ; Septimius Pel-
ton, — are all, with the exception, perhaps, of the second, more agreeable,
since in them the dismal and morbid psychology, which in all is the most
salient characteristic, is relieved at intervals by the sweetest and purest
human sunshine.
In The Marble Faun Mr. Hawthorne made, for the first time, a wide de-
parture from the field in which he had worked so long and brilliantly, only
to return to it again in The Dolliver Romance, his last work, of which but a
few chapters had been finished at the time of his death. Those few chap-
ters were, however, enough to show the powers of the writer at their high-
est, with an added grace and tenderness which was full of the most alluring
promise.
In 1850 and the following year, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe (known to
the public only through a little series of tales published a year or two before,
called The Mayflower, or Sketches of the Pilgrims') contributed to the National
Era, a weekly Antislavery newspaper in Washington, a serial story with the
title of Uncle Toms Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly. The circulation of the
newspaper was limited, and the story was brought to the attention of few be-
yond the usual readers. When the serial was completed, its author proposed
publishing it in a volume, but found much difficulty in getting any publisher
to accept it. Its publication was at length undertaken by Messrs. John P.
678 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Jewett & Co., of Boston, and the book appeared in 1852. Its instant and
extraordinary popularity must always remain one of the most remarkable
among the curiosities of literature. It has been stated that more than two
hundred thousand copies of the Boston edition were sold within a year from
its first appearance. Its reception in England was much more astonishing.
"The sale of Uncle Toms Cabin" says the Edinburgli Review, in 1855, " is
the most marvellous literary phenomenon that the world has ever witnessed.
. . . The first London edition was published in May, 1852, and was not
large. But in the following September the London publishers furnished to
one house ten thousand copies per day for about four weeks, and had to em-
ploy a thousand persons in preparing copies to supply the general demand.
We cannot follow it beyond 1852; but it is probable that by the end of
that year more than a million copies were sold in England." The un-
doubted cleverness of this book; its variety, vivacity, and fulness of in-
cident; its broad and striking contrasts, of exuberant fun with the most
genuine and moving pathos; its picturesque description; its vivid charac-
terizations,— are still not enough to account for such an unprecedented
success. We may, perhaps, explain its popularity in the United States by
remembering that the book fell upon a time when the people North and
South were intensely excited upon the portentous question of slavery, then
getting visibly hotter and more dangerous year by year. This book rep-
resents every form of opposition to slavery, — argument, wit, ridicule,
pathos, satire, and the bullet, — and appeals with force and enthusiasm to
every phase and every degree of Antislavery sentiment and opinion. And it
was, strange to say, with the exception of Hildreth's White Slave, the first
book which had attempted such a thing. For its enormous circulation
abroad, its translation into every language of Europe,1 its dramatization in
twenty different forms, and its representation in the theatres of every Euro-
pean capital, it is less easy to account, further than as an illustration of
the solidarity of the race, in virtue of which whatever stirs profoundly one
portion of mankind becomes forthwith matter of interest to all the rest.
It would have been strange if such an achievement had not stimulated
the author to new enterprises. In 1856 Mrs. Stowe published Dred, a Tale
of the Great Dismal Swamp. This was, like
its great predecessor, a story of slave-life,
but the moral purpose of the book as an
Antislavery tract was more constantly and directly enforced, and with less
relief in the way of incident and variety of character. All the prestige of the
author of Uncle Tom's Cabin was insufficient to procure for Drcd more than
a moderate and ordinary circulation. This was the last of Mrs. Stowe's
Antislavery novels. She continued to write with persevering industry, but
her stories were no longer stories of slavery, and were widely various in sub-
ject. The Minister's Wooing, The Pearl of Orrs Island, Agnes of Sorrento,
Pink and White Tyranny, were successively printed, first as serial stories
1 [See note to Dr. Clarke's chapter in this volume. — ED.]
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 679
in the Atlantic Monthly, and afterward in book form, but without any unusual
degree of favor.
Of miscellaneous works, conprising biography, travels, essays, etc., the
production during the period with which we are at present concerned was,
in the absence of the stimulus afforded by a prosperous and well conducted
magazine, somewhat limited. Mr. R. H.
Dana, Jr.'s Two Years Before the Mast, fa ^ . ^ Q\ /
which first appeared in 1840, was one of t r\. t/L n. ~J tM^-C- J^,
the first books of travel and adventure to &
be published in this unadventurous community, as it has remained one of the
best. Mr. Hillard's Six Months in Italy, a graceful, scholarly, and apprecia-
/-* tive account of the most familiar portions of that
much described country, was published in 1853;
and Mr. Charles Eliot Norton's Notes of Travel
and Study in Italy, in 1 860. The latter was less
the work of a tourist than Mr. Hillard's work, and more the work of a stu-
dent in the by-ways of Italian art and literature, and the social and ecclesi-
astical history of the Italian cities. Perhaps the first contribution to the
literature of Fine Art was the publication in 1850, under the editorship
of R. H. Dana, Jr., of Washington Allston's Lectures on Art. These lec-
tures were never read in public, and they formed but a portion of a course
which was intended to cover the whole field of the theory and practice
of painting.
The last literary division of the century, dating from the establishment
of the Atlantic Monthly, has been vastly more prolific than any of the pre-
ceding divisions ; too prolific, indeed, to permit so much as an enumeration
here of all the writers who have sprung up and flourished. As in the second
period the North American Review furnished the stimulus and the oppor-
tunity for the young writers of that early day, so forty years later the Atlantic
gathered into its more varied pages the work, less formal for the most part,
but more spirited and confident, of the newer generation. The new maga-
zine was established in 1857; the first number appeared in November of
that year.1 It took at once a leading position among the literary periodicals
of the country, and has steadily maintained that position. It had from the
first not only the firm and judicious management of able and accomplished
editors, but the cordial support of the best writers in the country on the one
hand and of a large and appreciative body of readers on the other. The
philosophy of Emerson ; the poetry of Longfellow, Lowell, Whittier, and
1 It was published by Messrs. Phillips and azine passed into the hands of Messrs. Ticknor
Sampson, under the editorship of James Russell & Fields. This firm, under successive styles,
Lowell. " Four volumes," says Mr. Scudder, continued to issue it till the close of 1873.
in his preface to the index of the first twenty Professor Lowell was succeeded by Mr. Fields,
volumes, " covering two years and two months, with whom at a later day was associated Mr.
were issued by this firm, when the deaths succes- W. D. Howells, who in his turn became editor-
sively of Mr. Phillips and Mr. Sampson were fol- in-chief in 1874," and in 1881 he in turn was suc-
lowed by a dissolution of the firm, and the mag- ceeded by Mr. Thomas B. Aldrich.
^-t>
680 THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Bryant ; the science of Agassiz ; the criticism of Weiss and Whipple, — were
at its service from the beginning. Dr. Holmes, whose youthful contribu-
tions to the New England Magazine twenty years before were dimly remem-
bered by the older readers, revived in the very first number of the Atlantic
the series of papers then begun under the title of The Autocrat of the Break-
fast Table, but revived then with the sobered wit and matured wisdom of
middle age. For the first two years these delightful papers, continued under
the title of Tlie Professor at tJie Breakfast Table, and touching one after
another, with wit, satire, pathos or grave reflection, every passing folly and
every serious interest of the day, were to the Atlantic what the recreations of
Christopher North were to Blackivood. Imbedded in them are many of the
most admirable of the serious poems of Dr. Holmes, as well as many of the
most amusing. They were followed by The Professor's Story, published
later under the title of Elsie Venner; and this again by T/ie Guardian Angel, —
stories in which the interest which comes from picturesque situations and
stirring incidents is by no means wanting, but in which the peculiar attrac-
tion lies in a certain curious
i analysis °f abnormal and he-
reditary twists of character
and disposition, which show
the hand of the Professor, to
whom all this pleasant story-
telling is but an avocation. Dr. Holmes's contributions also included
single papers on a great variety of topics, — social, scientific, biograph-
ical, — all marked by the same bright alertness, wit, and good sense.
The list of Atlantic story-writers is a long one, and includes some names
which will long remain on the most familiar shelves. A little story which
appeared in its second year, running over with delightful absurdity, purport-
ing to be written by the Rev. F. Ingham, and called " My Double, and how
he undid me," excited much curiosity as to its author, who however re-
mained generally unknown, perhaps even till the appearance some years
later of "The Man without a Country," — a sketch so vivid in its character-
ization, so vigorous in style, and so exactly timed to its opportunity (in the
most anxious year of the Rebellion), that the incognito was not long pre-
served. Mr. Hale remained a frequent contributor to the Atlantic until the
establishment of a magazine of his own, Old and New, in 1869.
Of the Atlantic writers, there are three who may be said to have repre-
sented in its pages not unfairly the modern school of American fiction.
Of Mr. Howells and Mr. Aldrich, the first contributions to this magazine
appeared in the same volume in 1860. Mr. James began some five years
later. All have been constant contributors ever since of stories more or less
elaborate, which have sufficient likeness to distinguish them as a group from
all the earlier writers of fiction, while they have certain differences which
1 [There is a good likeness and a sketch of Mr. Hale's career in the Harvard Register, May,
1881. — ED.]
THE PRESS, ETC., OF THE LAST HUNDRED YEARS. 68 1
distinguish them clearly enough one from another. If Mr. Howells has
more vigor of style and more incident, Mr. Aldrich has more sentiment and
a more delicate touch; while Mr. James differs from both in a certain criti-
cal attitude which he maintains toward his characters, — an attitude which
savors sometimes of contemptuousness or at least of a cold superiority,
which is but a poor substitute for the loving sympathy which the great
story-tellers have felt for the children of their imagination. More than
either of the other two, more perhaps than any predecessor in the same
field, his stories abound in minute details of character and manners, —
of manners even more than character. But this is a peculiarity which Mr.
James shares with most of the writers of fiction of our time and country,
and which makes the chief element in the contrast between the modern
American novel and the robust and healthy novels of English life with
which Thackeray, Trollope, Reade, and Hardy, to say nothing of lesser
names, have entertained the world.
The Atlantic has been even richer in essays than in fiction. The essays
of Mr. Lowell, now on some absorbing issue of the war, or the politics of
war time, now on some placid topic of curious literary study ; the essays of
Mr. Norton on Italian poetry or archaeology ; of Mr. Whipple J on the
Elizabethan poets and philosophers;
of Mr. Henry James on speculative
philosophy and sociology; of Mr. C.
C. Hazewell on contemporary foreign
politics ; of Mr. Parton on the pictur-
esque passages of American history,
biography, and manners; the admirable papers of Colonel Higginson on all
sorts of familiar subjects connected with the war, and with the politics, dress,
diet, manners, and social life of the day; the charming papers in which
Thoreau, John Burroughs, and Wilson Flagg have set down their loving
observations of the trees, birds, flowers, and the thousand aspects of the
New England country, — these are but an example of the variety of interest
which has gathered around the pages of this magazine during the first
quarter of a century. The Atlantic is a favorable example, too, of the
modern manner in periodical literature, which has now quite superseded
the more deliberate and ponderous manner of a generation ago. The quar-
terlies have lost their hold on the readers of to-day, and will doubtless soon
disappear. The North American Review, so long the type and expression
of the literary character and tastes of Boston, has passed2 from the city which
fostered it for sixty years, and retains little of its original and distinctive
character. The Christian Examiner, which maintained its place alongside
the North American for nearly fifty years, has ceased to exist, and has left
no successor. The movement of mind has shared in the larger and more
1 [Mr. Whipple has contributed a similar, in The First Century of the Republic, New
but a necessarily wider, survey than the pres- York, 1876. — ED.]
ent, in his " Century of American Literature " 2 To New York.
VOL. III. — 86.
682
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
intense activity of the present age, and brevity, vivacity, and concentration
are now the first requisites in a periodical literature as in the affairs of pub-
lic and private business.
Whether the ever increasing interests of business and social life in Amer-
ica, — of business life in particular ; the amazing increase of wealth and
private luxury, and the appetite which grows by what it feeds on ; the dis-
appearance everywhere of the simplicity which marked the life of the earlier
half of the century, — are to conduce to the development in the future of a
literature at once brilliant and ennobling, is a question not easy to answer.
The connection between the conditions of popular life and the highest
literary activity, in those countries of Europe which have produced the
greatest examples of national literature, has always been obscure. That
there is a connection is, however, undoubtedly true. The distinctive traits
of the New England character are fast passing away from the New England
people, swallowed up in the swelling tide of American national life. It is
not unreasonable to expect that the traits which have distinguished the
New England literature of the past century will be wanting in the literature
of the next. " The past at least is secure." 1
1 [The proportion of college-bred men in something less than 1200 of population, now
Massachusetts has so decreased since 1800, that there is one in about 1800 souls. See American
while at the beginning of the present century her Antiquarian Society Proceedings, April 24, 1878.
students in college were approximately one in — ED.]
INDEX.
Contributors' names are in SMALL CAPITALS, followed by the titles of their chapters in quotation-marks, and titles of
books are in italics. Lists of names in various chapters are not included in this Index.
ABBOTT, JACOB, 649; autograph, 649.
J. S. C., 410; autograph, 410. Ma-
jor Henry L., 323; portrait, 323.
Abolitionists in Boston, 369, 386.
Absentees, 175.
Academy of Notre Dame, 533.
'' Adams and Liberty," song, 625.
Adams, Hannah, her writings, 641.
John, 7 ; his portrait, 192 ; his
house, 155 : fruitful writer, 141 ; de-
fends Captain Preston, 36 ; his brief,
38 ; legal adviser of patriots, 41 ; as
" Novanglus," 133 ; and the news-
papers, 625 ; and Mercy Warren,
641 ; letters, 642. J. Q., as writer,
642 ; autograph, 642 ; his verse, 650 ;
and the right of petition, 384. Rev.
Nehemiah, 410; autograph, 410;
defends slavery, 387. Phinehas,
637. Samuel, as public writer, 140;
drafts State papers, 22 ; writes the
Appeal, 28 ; as " Vindex," 39 ; por-
trait, 35 ; autograph, 35 ; his pa-
pers, 36; his house, 158. Rev.
William, 409 ; autograph, 409.
Adressers, 157, 175.
Agassiz, Louis, 664.
Agricultural newspapers, 633 ; society,
609.
Aiken, Rev. Silas, 411; autograph,
411.
Alcott, Bronson A., 657.
Alden, Judah, 231; profile drawn, by
Kosciusko, 99.
Aldrich, T. B., 679, 680, 681.
Algerine War, 347.
Alien and Sedition Laws, 623.
Alien passengers, 246.
Allen, Benjamin L., acting mayor, 259.
William, Biographical Dictionary,
642.
Allston, W., his lectures, 679.
Allston Village, 607.
Almshouse on Deer Island, 256.
American Academy, 634.
American Apollo, 635.
American Baptist Missionary Union,
428.
American Colonization Society, 388.
American Herald, 617.
American lines during the siege, 104.
.-/ me r ican Preceptor, 644.
American Recorder, 547.
American Unitarian Association, 477.
Ames, Fisher, 197, 625, 642, 669.
Amory, John, autograph, 152. Rufus
G., 303. Thomas, autograph, 152.
Ancient and Honorable Artillery Com-
pany, 300, 301, 303 ; commanders
from Boston, 301.
Andrew, John A., 392 ; governor, 399 ;
references on his life, 399 ; auto-
graph, 400.
Andrews, Ebenezer T., 642. John,
155, 156, 163.
Anthology Club, 637.
Anticks, 172.
Antislavery movements, 241, 256, 260,
264, 266, 648, 652, 675, 678.
Antislavery Society, 375.
Appleton, Nathaniel, autograph, 153.
William, 461.
Apthorp, Rev. East, 121.
Argus, brig, 337.
Arianism, 476.
Arminians, 467.
Armstrong, Samuel T., mayor, 243 ;
autograph, 290.
Arnold, Benedict, in Cambridge, 1 14.
Artillery Election Sermons, 120.
Artillery Train, 62.
Assessments and valuations, 234.
Associators, 157, 175.
Atlantic Avenue, 272, 276.
A tlantic Monthly, 679.
Atlantic Neptune, vi.
Attucks, Crispus, 31.
Austin, James T , 384. Jonathan Lor-
ing, 183. Nathaniel, Jr., autograph,
555- William, autograph, 564.
A very, John, autograph, 153.
BACK BAY, plan in 1814, x; land
agreement, 261.
Bacon, Rev. John, 126.
Bagna'l, Thomas, 439.
Bainbridge, Commodore William, 338,
349,351,355; commands the ''Con-
stitution," 341 ; autograph, 352.
Baldwin, Loammi, 212, 355; auto-
graph, 557. Rev. Thomas, 423.
Balfour, Rev. Walter, 499; autograph,
490-
Ballon, Rev. Hosea, 492 : portrait,
493 ; autograph, 493. Hosea, 2d,
50 : autograph, 502.
Bancroft, George, 654, 665 ; autograph,
665.
Baptists in Boston, 421 ; in Brighton,
605 ; in Charlestown, 561, 563 ; So-
cial Union, 432 ; in Roxbury, 581.
Barker, Josiah, 356.
Barras, autograph, 166.
Barre1, Colonel Isaac, defends the
Colonies, n ; autograph, n ; his
portrait asked for, 19.
Barrett. Colonel James, autograph, 103.
Jonathan, autograph, 153.
BARROWS, SAMUEL J., " Dorchester
in the last Hundred Years," 589.
Bass, Bishop Edward, 449, 454.
Bartholomew, Rev. J. G., autograph,
502.
Bartlett, Josiah, 547; autograph. 548.
Gen. William F., 318 ; portrait, 318.
Bates, George, 348.
Baylies, Hadijah, autograph, 213.
Beachmont, 616.
Beacon, 25, 171, 184; Hill, panorama
from, 79; Street in 1804, 225.
Beaurain, vi.
Beecher, Laban S.. 357. Rev. Lyman,
408 ; portrait, 408 ; autograph, 408.
Belknap, Jeremy, 473 ; autograph,
635 ; as a writer, 640.
Bellingham Estate in Chelsea, 615.
Bells, ringing of, 243.
Benevolent Fraternity of Churches,
477-
Benjamin, Park. 652.
Benneville, Rev. George de, 483.
Bent, Rev. N. T., 458.
Bernard, Governor, 27 ; his house, 117;
sails for England, 28.
Berniere, ii.
Betterment law, 272.
Bible in the public schools, 535.
Bigelow, Horatio, 627. Dr. Jacob,
645. John P., mayor, 254 ; auto-
graph, 291. Timothy, autograph,
213-
Bingham, Caleb, 644.
Binney, Amos, 339, 439.
Bishop's palace, 106.
Bliss, George, autograph, 213.
Block, Rev. William, 435.
Blockade of Boston, a play, 162.
Blowers, S. S., 38 ; autograph, 38.
I'.lunt. \.
Boardman. Rev. Richard, 435.
Boies, James, 1 17.
Holies, Rev. Dr., 460.
684
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Bolton, Commodore William C., 349.
Bond, William, autograph, 105.
Borland House, 106.
Boston, city, incorporation of, 219, 222 ;
city government organized, 224 ;
charter amended, 246, 248, 259, 260,
278, 282, 293 ; bicentenary of, 236,
291 ; water-board, 285 ; in the Civil
War, 316; descriptions of, 168 ; maps
of, i-xii, — by Trumbull, 80 ; popu-
lation, increase of, 292, — during the
siege, 92, (in 1783) 168, 190, (in 1810)
303, (in 1820)221, (in 1830)234, (in
1850)255, (in 1860)264, 312, (in 1880)
278 ; independence proclaimed, 183 ;
rolls of troops, 118; siege of, 67;
life in, 91, 154 ; plundered, 76 ; evac-
uated, 94, 163, 180; approaches for-
tified, v. 79, 182 ; authorities on
siege, 78, 154 ; literature of siege,
117; views of town, 23, 156.
Boston, frigate, 187, 334 ; sloop-of-
war, 354.
Boston harbor, exploits in, during the
Revolution, 90 ; plans of, i-xii ; pre-
servation of, 263 ; views of, 23.
Boston Highlands, 588.
Boston institutions : Boston Athe-
naeum, 638 ; Boston College, 536 ;
Boston University, 441.
Boston Light, viii, 96.
Boston massacre, 31-40; orations, 40,
'35, 635-
Boston military : dragoons, 303 ; light
infantry, 303.
Boston Port Bill, 52 ; donations to the
town, 54.
Boston publications: Almanac, xi ;
Atlas, 629 ; Catholic Observer, 527 ;
Chronicle, 617, 623, 626 ; Courier,
628 ; Evening Transcript, 630 ;
Directory, vii ; Gazette, 132, 137,
617, 623, 624 ; Herald, 630 ; Maga-
zine, 636 ; Miscellany, 663 ; Pat-
riot, 626 ; Pilot, 534 : Post, 629 ;
Recorder, 632 ; Times, 630 ; Trav-
eller, 630; Weekly Magazine, 643.
Bounties in the Civil War, 315: evils
of. 325-
Bowditch, Nathaniel, 641.
Bowdoin, James, 144; autograph, 39;
in poor health, 76: his house, 155;
during Shays's rebellion, 193 ; his
portrait, 195.
Bowen, Abel Francis, x, 663.
Bowes, William, autograph, 153.
Boylston, John, 178; Nicholas, 152.
Bradford, Duncan, 357. Samuel, 303.
Brattle, Thomas, no. William, 62,
no; Estate in Cambridge, no.
Brattle Street meeting-house, 92, 106,
,58.
Breck, Samuel, 155, 171.
Breed, Ebenezer, autograph, 555.
Bridge, Eben, autograph, 106. Mat-
thew, autograph, 557.
Bridge to Charlestown, 554.
Brighton, annexed, 284, 603 ; churches,
604 ; noted citizens, 610.
Brimmer, Martin, mayor, 249; auto-
graph, 290.
Brinley house in Roxbury, 116.
Broad Street riot, 245.
Broadway Bridge, 276.
Brook Farm, 577, 579, 585.
Brooks, Major John, 83, 105 ; auto-
graph, 83.
BROOKS, PHILLIPS, "The Episcopal
Church," 447, 463.
Brotherhood of St. John, 460.
Brown, Box, 393. Gawen, 154. Sam-
uel, 336, 337-
Brown's house, 80.
Brown of Ossawattomie, 399.
Brownson, O. A. 660 ; his Quarterly
Review, 660 ; his Boston Quarterly
Review, 660.
Brush, Crean, 97.
Bryant, William C., 643, 650.
Buckingham, Joseph T., 628, 629, 631 ;
autograph, 631.
Buckminster, Rev. J. S.,47s; portrait,
475-
Budington, Rev. W. I., 412, 560; au-
tograph, 412, 561.
BUGBEE, JAMES M., " Boston under
the Mayors," 217.
Buildings, survey and inspection of,
281 : destroyed during the siege,
'55-
Bulfinch, Charles, 517. Dr. Thomas,
450, 452.
Bunker Hill, fortified, 82, 181 ; battle,
82 ; British morning orders, 84 ;
command in, 103 ; plan of battle, i ;
view of battle, 87, 88 ; view of field,
555; loss in Charlestown, 104, 549;
prisoners taken, 89 ; its centenary,
287 ; literature of, 103 ; orderly
books, 84 ; monument, 88.
Bunker Hill A urora, 547.
Bunker Hill Monument Association,
566.
Burgoyne, General, arrives. 81 ; auto-
graph, 81; writes plays, 93, 161 ;
dies, 100; his army in Cambridge,
183; their parole, 184; in Boston,
'55-
Burns, the fugitive, 260, 397, 398.
Burrill, Samuel, 437.
Burying-ground redoubt in Roxbury,
114.
Bussey, Benjamin, 583 ; his farm, 572.
Bute's ministry, 8, 12; autograph, 13.
Butcher's Association in Brighton, 608.
Butler Hill, 106.
Byles, Mather, 126, 160 ; his daughters,
160; his estate, 161. Mathar, Jr.
128, 448.
Byrne, Rev. Patrick, 519 ; autograph,
519.
BYRNE, WILLIAM, "The Roman Ca-
tholic Church in Boston," 515.
CABOT, GEORGE, 626 ; autograph, 213 ;
portrait, 214.
Cadets, 300, 303.
Caldwell, James, 31 •
Callender, Joseph, ix.
Cambridge, assembly at, 27,41 ; bridge,
xi; plan of, xi.
Caner, Rev. Henry, 128, 448.
Canterbury, 572.
Carleton, Osgood, viii, ix ; autograph,
viii.
Carney, Andrew, 539.
Carney Hospital, 539.
Carroll, Bishop, 517; autograph, 517.
Carter farm, 615.
Gary, Nathaniel, autograph, 153. Rich-
ard, autograph, 152.
Gary farm, 615.
Castle, burned, 180 ; surrendered to the
military, 41.
Castle Island, ix.
Catechising, 469.
Cathedral of the Holy Cross, old, view
of, 516; sold, 536; the new, 536,
544-
Catholics, burials of, 528 ; in Charles-
town, 564. See Roman Catholics.
Cattle fair in Brighton, 607.
Cemeteries in Brighton, 609 ; in Rox-
bury, 586.
Chalkley, Robert, 552.
CHAMBERLAIN, MELLEN, " Chelsea,
etc., in the last hundred years," 6n.
Channing, W. E., 637, 646; his Uni-
tarianism, 474 ; joins Abolitionists,
377, 383-
Chapin, Rev. E. H , 492, 500 ; auto-
graph, 492.
Chapman, Jonathan, mayor, 247; au-
tograph, 290.
Charities, 470 ; in Roxbury, 585.
Charles River, xii ; bridge, 554.
Charlestown, 547 ; annexed, 284, 570 ;
battery, 306 ; schools, 557 ; meeting-
house built, 558 ; tree, vi ; loss in,
during the battle on Bunker Hill,
86, 549; town clerks, 551 ; view of,
in 1789, 554 ; other views, 555 : made
a city, 569 ; public library, 569 ;
mayors of, 569 ; maps of, ii, iv, vii,
viii, x, xi, xii, 568.
Charlestown artillery, 307.
Chastellux in Boston, 167.
Chatham, Earl of, autograph, 65.
Chauncy, Rev Charles, 122, 471, 488.
Checkley, Rev. Samuel, Jr., 125.
Chelsea, 611, 616; bridge, 555; maps,
xi, xii ; naval hospital at, 351.
Chesapeake frigate, 341 ; and Shannon,
344-
Chestnut Hill reservoir, 272.
Cheverus, Bishop, 516 ; autograph,
518; portrait, 518.
Child, David Lee, 377. Lydia M.,
378, 648.
Chocolate Manufacture, 595.
Cholera in Boston, 255.
Christ Church in Cambridge, no; in
Boston and the lanterns, 101.
Christian Disciple, 479, 646.
Christian Examiner, 479, 645.
Christian Register, 480, 633.
Christian Witness, 633.
INDEX.
685
Chronicle, 130.
Church, Benjamin, Jr., active, 44, 145 ;
autograph, in, 145; his detection,
in.
Church of the Advent, 458.
Church Street District, 274.
Cincinnati Society, 621.
City Clerk, 225.
City Hall (old State House), 235 ; (old
Court House), 247 ; new one erected,
267, 272.
City Hospital, 262.
City Seal, 225.
Civil War (1861-65), Brighton's share,
603 : acts of Charlestown, 565 : Dor-
chester in, 596 ; Roxbury's share,
578; necessitated illegal registration,
267; quota of Boston, 271 ; its ef-
fect on newspapers, 629.
Clapp, Deacon Ebenezer, 593. Wil-
liam W., 627.
Clarendon Hills, 572.
Clark, John, 439. Silas, 612.
CLARKE, JAMES FREEMAN, "The An-
tislavery Movement in Boston," 369.
Rev. John, 471.
Clay, Henry, his visit (1833), 602.
Cleaveland, Parker, 645.
Clouston, John, 188.
Clinton, General, arrives, 81 ; auto-
graph, 81 ; dies, 100.
Cobb, Samuel C., mayor, 284; auto-
graph, 291. Rev. Sylvanus, 504 ;
autograph, 504.
Cobble Hill, 105.
Cochituate Water, 252.
Codman, Rev. John, 407, 594 ; auto-
graph, 407.
Coffin, William, autograph, 153.
Colby, Gardner, 430!
College-bred men, 682.
Colonies, union of, 20.
Color printing, x.
Columbian Orator, 644.
Columbus Avenue Church, 501.
Commandant's house at Navy Yard,
337-
Commercial Point, 595.
Committee of Correspondence, 42 ;
their doings, 55 ; their records, 182.
Committee of Safety, 77.
Common, British works on, 79; cows
on, 236; Soldiers' Monument on,
324-
Concord, Expedition to, 67, 101. See
Lexington.
Confiscation Acts, 175.
Congregational Churches, 401 ; in
Charlestown, 563 ; in Dorchester,
594-
Congregationalist, 633.
Constellation, frigate, 340.
Constitution of the U. S. adopted, 196.
Constitution, ship, 332, 337, 340, 344 ;
docked and rebuilt, 356 ; figure-head
of Jackson, 357.
Constitution of Massachusetts (1780),
148, 192, 613.
Constitutional Telegraph*, 624.
Continental Congress, 55.
Continental Jourtial, 617.
Convention troops, 184, 323.
Conway, General, his portrait asked
for, 19.
Cooper, Rev. Samuel, 123. William,
town clerk, 28, 33 ; clerk of Com-
mittee of Correspondence, 44 ; au-
tograph, 44.
Coquette, The, a novel, 604, 637.
Cordis, Joseph, autograph, 554.
Cotton, John, 402.
Court House, 243.
Craft, Ellen, 393.
Crafts house in Roxbury, 586.
Craigie, Dr. Andrew, 113.
Craigie house in Cambridge, 112.
Crane, William B., autograph, 352.
Croswell, Rev. Andrew, 129. Rev.
William, 456, 459.
Cudworth, Benjamin, 14.
Cumberland, frigate, 354, 362.
Cunard line of steamships, 247.
CUMMINGS, CHARLES A., " Press and
Literature of the last hundred
years," 617.
Cushing, Thomas, 144, 145 ; autograph,
29. 34; portrait, 34.
Customs officers, 3.
Cutter, Leonard R., acting mayor, 284.
Samuel, 557.
Cutler, Rev. Timothy, 128.
DAILY, first, in Boston, 627.
Daily Advertiser, 626, 627.
Dalrymple, Colonel, 25.
Dana, R. H., Sr., 649 ; autograph,
649 ; his Buccaneer, 649 ; Idle Man,
649. R. H., Jr., his writings, 679 ;
autograph, 679.
Dane, Nathan, autograph, 213.
Danforth, Thomas, 551.
Datchet house in Roxbury, 116.
Davis, Aaron, 587. Rev. John, 127.
Thomas A., mayor, 250; autograph,
290. William, 117.
Davy, Solomon, autograph, 153.
Dawes, William, sent to Lexington, 68,
101.
Dean, Rev. Paul, 490, 496, 497 ; auto-
graph, 498.
Deane, frigate, 187.
Dearborn, Benjamin, x. Henry, ii,
105, 116, 574; portrait, 574. H. A.
S > 575- Nathaniel, xi.
Debt of the city, 225, 234, 240, 247, 249,
251, 252, 255, 264, 278, 288; act for
regulating extent, 286.
Dedhani turnpike, 576.
Derby, Richard, autograph, 103.
Des P.nrres, J. F. W., iii, vi.
Deserters, 91 .
D'Estaing in Boston, 185.
Devens, Chas., autograph, 551. Rich-
ard, 549 ; portrait, 550 ; autograph,
101, 550. Samuel, autograph, 551.
Dewey, Samuel P., 359.
Dexter, Franklin, autograph, 557.
Samuel, 211, 557 ; autograph, 557.
Dial, 656.
Dickens, Charles, in Boston, 248.
Dickinson, John, 22, 131.
Doane, Rev. G. W., 456.
Dodge, David, autograph, 551.
Donkin's Military Collections, 74.
Doolittle, Colonel Ephraim, auto-
graph, 107.
Dorchester, 589; schools, 591 ; churches,
592 ; annexed, 277, 598 ; population,
599 ; plan of, x, xii ; heights occu-
pied, 94 ; Neck, 117; fortified, 117;
Neck annexed, 597 ; Neck, plan
of, v.
DORCHESTER, DANIEL, " The Metho-
dist Episcopal Church," 423.
Douglass, Frederick, 393.
Downes, Commodore John, 361 ; auto-
graph, 352.
Dowse, Edward, 38.
Draft riot (1863), 269.
DRAKE, F. S., " Roxbury in the last
hundred years," 571 ; " Brighton in
the last hundred years," 601.
Drama in 1814, 308.
Draper, Moses, 572,. Richard, 130.
Drum, or rout, 161.
Dry Dock, 354, 356.
Dudley, Colonel Joseph, 573. Paul,
his mile-stones, 585.
Dudley estate, 576.
Duel, 185 ; Finch and White, 349.
Dupee, Elias, 160.
Dutton, Warren, 625.
Dwight, Rev. S. E., 410. Lieut. -
Colonel Wilder, 322 ; portrait, 322.
Dyer, Micah, 440.
EAST BOSTON, plan of, ix, xi. Fer-
ries, 277, 288.
East burn, Bishop, 460, 464.
Eaton, Rev. Asa, 454.
Eckley, Rev. Joseph, 406, 470 ; auto-
giaph, 406.
Edes, Benjamin, 624. HENRY H.,
" Charlestown in the last hundred
years," 547. Robert B., autograph,
552. Thomas, Jr., autograph, 552.
Edes house in Charlestown, 552 ; view
of, 553-
Edes& Gill, 132, 617.
Edwards, Rev. Justin, 409 ; autograph,
409.
Election sermons, 120.
Eliot, Dr. Andrew, 91, 124, 159. Dr.
John, 471 ; his Biographical Dic-
tionary, 642. S.imuel, autograph,
152. Samuel A., mayor, 243 ; auto-
graph, 291 ; portrait, 244.
Elliot, Commodore Jesse D., 355, 356 ;
autograph, 352.
Ellis, Rev. George E., D. D., 563.
Rev. Sumner, 490.
Elmwood, 113, 114.
Emancipation group, 292, 400.
Embargo, 209, 626, 643.
Emerson, R. W., 477, 655, 663 ; as lec-
turer, 659; his poetry, 673. Rev
William, 637.
686
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Emmanuel Church, 462.
Episcopal Church, 447 ; in Brighton,
605 ; in Roxbury, sSi ; clergy in the
Revolution, 127 ; controversy, 121.
" Era of good feeling," 626.
Erving, John, Jr., 152.
Essex, frigate, 341.
Essex Gazette, 138.
Eustis, Governor, 1 12 ; his house, 575 ;
autograph, 575 ; attends wounded
of Bunker Hill, in.
Evening Post, 131.
Everett, Alexander H., 645. Edward,
380, 670; as clergyman, 475; his
portrait, 671 ; autograph, "671. Rev.
L. S., 491 ; autograph, 491. Rev.
Oliver, 472.
Evergreen Cemetery, 609.
FADEN, WILLIAM, iii ; his maps, So.
Falmouth, sloop of war, 354.
Faneuil Hall, a theatre during the
siege, 161 ; portraits in, 181 ; view
of, 228.
Farm School, 241.
Farmer's letters, 22.
Fay, S. P. P., 307-
Fayerwether house in Cambridge, 113.
Federal Constitution, reports of meet-
ing to adopt, 622 ; adopted, 196.
Federal Gazette, 627.
Federal Orrery, 625.
Federal Street widened, 277 ; meeting-
house, 158.
Federalists in Boston, 189, 623 ; their
decline, 207 ; revival, 207 ; final ex-
tinction, 215 ; authorities on, 214,
215-
Felch, Cheever, 348, 350.
Fellowes Athenaeum, 583.
Fenwick, Bishop, 519.
Fessenden, T. G., 633.
Finch, Lieutenant William B , duel,
349-
Fires, in 1787, vii ; in 1794, viii; in
1872, 281 ; legislation after, 295.
Fire department, 229, 243, 246 ; tele-
graphic fire-alarm, 256; steam fire-
engines, 256 ; reorganized, 282 ; of
Roxbury, 584; engines, 151, 152.
Fisher, William, autograph, 153.
Fitch, Timothy, autograph, 152.
Fitzpatrick, Bishop, 526 ; autograph,
526 ; died, 539.
Flag, naval, 188 ; used at the siege,
105.
Fleet, John, 131. Thomas, 131.
Follen, Charles, 654.
Food scarce during the siege, 157.
Forest Hill Cemetery, 577, s<$f>
Fort Hill, view of, 23 ; removed, 272.
Fort Independence, 305 ; Strong, 310,
311; Warren, 306.
Forton, prisoners at, 187.
Foster, Rev. John, 604. Mrs Hannah,
637 ; her novel, The Coquette, 604.
Fowle, Zachariah, 134.
Foxcroft, Rev. Thomas, 122.
Frankland, Lady, 77.
Franklin, Benjamin, before parliament,
18 ; agent of Massachusetts Bay, 41.
Freeman, Rev. James, 450, 472 ; por-
trait, 473.
Freemasons, 585.
Free-soil party, 389, 390.
French army in Boston, 165 ; their en-
tertainment, 166.
French officers, autographs, 166.
French Revolution, influence of, 203,
623.
Friends' monthly meeting, 64.
Frolic, sloop-of-war, 343.
Frothingham, Benjamin, autograph,
559. Rev. N. L , 476. Hon Rich-
ard, 566 ; autograph, 566 ; his " Sam
Adams Regiments," 29.
Fuel scarce during the siege, 156.
Fugitive-slave law, 397.
Fuller, Margaret, 656, 657 ; autograph,
656.
Fulling mill, 587.
GAGE, THOMAS, made Governor of
Massachusetts Bay, 54 ; seizes pow-
der, and begins fortifications, 62 :
sends out expeditions, 66 ; and his
wife, 68 ; his account of Lexington
and Concord, 73 ; his order to in-
habitants to leave Boston, fac-sim-
ile, 76 ; reinforced, 81 : dies, 100.
Gamage, Dr. William, Jr., autograph,
112.
Gannett, Rev. E. S , 476.
Gardiner, Rev. J. S. J-, 452, 625 ; por-
trait, 453, 456.
Gardner, Rev. Calvin, 491 ; autograph,
491. Henry J., 258.
Garretson, Rev. Freeborn, 435.
Garrison, William Lloyd, 371, 632 ;
portrait, 373.
Garrison mob, 241, 381.
Gaston, William, mayor, 279 ; auto-
graph, 291.
Gates, General in command in Boston,
• 85.
Gates and Carter duel, 185.
Gaylord, Rev. N. M., 490.
General Repository, 479.
German literature, influence of, 653,
660.
Gerry, Elbridge, autograph, 211.
Gerrymander, 212.
Gibbs, Major Caleb, 348.
Gill, Moses, autograph, 205.
Glen, James, 510.
Glover, Colonel John, autograph, 113.
GODDAKD, D. A., "The Pulpit, Press,
and Literature of the Revolution,"
611.
Goodnow, Elisha, his gift, 262.
Goodrich, S. G., 649.
Goodwin, Mrs., keeps Washington's
house, 113.
Goodwin's ship- yard, 187.
Gorham, Nathaniel, 549 ; autograph
549-
Governor's Island, 306, 310.
Grades at South End raised, 274.
rafton, Duke of, 21 ; autograph, 21 ;
Rev. C. C., 460.
rant & Dashwood, 618.
rape Island affair, 100.
-rasse, Comte de, autograph, 166.
iraves, Admiral, 80; autograph, 81.
Iray, Rev. F.T., 498. Harrison, Jr.,
autograph, 153. Samuel, 31. Tho-
mas, autograph, 152. Rev. Thomas,
581. Hon. William, 314.
Gray's ropewalk, 30.
Greaton, Rev. James, 128. General
John, 116; autograph, 116.
Green, Jonathan, 612, 613. Joseph,
the wit, 178 ; his portrait, 132 ; auto-
graph, 152. Rev. Samuel, 41 1 ; au-
tograph, 411.
Greene, General Nathanael, 117; auto-
graph, 105, 118; in command in
Boston, 182. Nathaniel, autograph,
'53-
Green Dragon Tavern, 64.
Greenleaf, Joseph, 136. Rev. P. H.,
461. Stephen, 14, 25. William, au-
tograph, 29.
Greenwood^Rev F. W. P., 476.
Gregory, Commodore F. H., auto-
graph, 352.
Grenville, George, autograph, 8.
Greyhound Tavern, 131, 584.
Gridley, Jeremy, 4. Richard, 82, 83 ;
constructs defences in Cambridge,
1 06.
Griffin, Rev. E. D., 407 ; autograph.
407.
Griswold, liishop, 454, 458.
HALE, EDWARU E., "The Siege of
Boston," 67 ; his writings, 680; au-
tograph, 680. Nathan, as editor,
627 ; autograph, 628.
Hales, J. G., x.
Hall, Rev. Nathaniel, 593.
Hallowell, Benjamin, 179; autograph,
'53-
Hamilton, Alexander, statue of, 206.
Hancock, John, 144; character of, 170,
200; autograph, 153, 200; portrait
by Revere, 45, 46; delivers Massa-
cre oration, 54 ; acts as major-gen-
eral, 185; during Washington's visit
(1789), 197, 199; his house, 155, 200,
201 ; his cottage at Jamaica Plain,
203 ; defeats Bowdoin, 194.
Hannah Corcoran riot, 531.
Harbinger, 663.
Harbor defences in War of 1812, 305.
See Boston Harbor.
Harper, Rev. John, 438.
Harris, Isaac, 332. Thaddeus Mason,
592, 641 ; portrait, 593.
Hartford, Farragut's flag -ship, 363.
Hartford Convention, 212; autographs
of members from Massachusetts,
2'3-
Hart's ship-yard, 332.
Harvard College buildings during the
siege, 107.
Hastings, Jonathan, 107, 109.
INDEX.
687
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 676 ; his au-
tograph, 676.
Haxtun, M., autograph, 353.
Hazard, ship, 186.
Health, Board of, 279.
Heath, General, in command in Bos-
ton, 183; his likenesses and home-
stead, 183 ; made general, 65 ;
autograph, 65.
Heath estate. 576.
Hedge, F. H., 660.
Helpless Orphan, 636.
Henchman, Daniel, 31.
Henshaw, Joshua, autograph, 152.
Henson, Father, 393.
Hewes, Shubael, 157, 179.
Hildreth, Richard, 667 ; his History
of the United States, 668.
Hill, Alexander, autograph, 152. Rev.
William, 510.
Hillard, George S., 384, 396 ; his writ-
ings, 679 ; autograph, 679.
Historical writers, 664.
Hodgson, John, stenographer, 38.
Hog Island, 78, 80.
Hog-reeves, 218.
Holbrook, Samuel, autograph, 551.
Holden, Oliver, autograph, 570.
Holland, Samuel, surveyor, iii, vi.
Hollis Street meeting-house, 158.
Hollowell, Robert, 179.
Holmes, Abiel, 641. Oliver Wendell,
650 ; his prose writings, 680 ; his
poetry, 674.
Holmes house in Cambridge, 108.
Home Journal, 584.
Hooper, Robert, 56. Rev. William,
128.
Hopkins, Captain, 184. Rev. J. H.,
456.
Horse railroad, 577.
Horticulture, 595.
House of the Angel Guardian, 530, 534,
536.
House of Industry, 230.
Howard, Rev. Simeon, 121, 472.
Howe, General, arrives, 81 ; autograph,
81 ; his proclamation, 97 ; his troops,
163 ; his quarters, 155. Rev. Jo-
seph, 126. Rev. M. A. DeW., 456.
Samuel G., 392, 398, 651, 664; auto-
graph, 664.
Howells, W. D., 679, 680, 681.
Hubbard, Daniel, autograph, 153.
Hudson, W. L., autograph, 353.
Hughes, Samuel, autograph, 152.
Hull, Commodore Isaac, 307, 339, 340,
341, 351; portrait, 339; captures
the "Guerriere," 339,340, 341 ; au-
tograph, 352; commands the Navy-
yard, 347.
Humphreys, Deacon Henry, 593.
Hunt, Rev. John, 126.
Huntington, Rev. F. D., 462. Rev.
Joshua, 406.
Hurd, Joseph, autograph, 554.
Hutchinson, Eliakim, 179. Thomas,
chief-justice, 4 ; his house sacked,
14; becomes acting-governor, 28;
and the massacre, 33 ; becomes gov-
ernor, 41 ; letters made public, 44;
his house at Milton, 48 ; recalled,
54 ; as writer, 145.
Hyde Park, 595.
INCHES, HENDERSON, autograph, 153.
Independence, line-of-battle ship, 343,
346-348 ; razeed, 361.
Independence proclaimed in Boston,
183 ; copies of the printed declara-
tion, 183.
Independent Advertiser, 133.
Independent Chronicle, 138 ; fac-sim-
ile, 139.
Independent Ledger, 617.
Inman, Ralph, autograph, 106 ; his
house, 106.
Insane, hospital for, 246.
Intrepid, torpedo*boat, 344, 365.
Ivers, James, 450.
JACKSON, FRANCIS, 383.
Jail, 253, 255.
Jamaica Pond aqueduct, 237, 573.
James, Henry, Jr., 680.
Jarvis, Samuel, 621. Rev. S. F., 455.
Jay's treaty, 204, 564.
Jeffries, Dr. John, 87.
Jenks, Rev. William, 407 ; autograph,
407.
Johnson, Oliver, 372.
Johonnot, Francis, 337, 339.
Judd, Sylvester, his Margaret, 676.
Judson, Rev. Adoniram, 428.
Julien, the caterer, 575.
Junketing, 268.
KEMBLE, CHARLES, in Boston, 628.
Kettell, John, autograph, 551.
KING, HENRY M., "The Baptists in
Boston," 421. Rev. T. F,, 492;
autograph, 492. Rev. T. Starr,
492 ; autograph, 492.
King's Chapel, 450, 472.
Kirk, Rev. E. N., 412 ; autograph,
412.
Kirkland, Rev. J. T., 472.
Kneeland, Rev. Abner, 491 ; auto-
graph, 491.
Know-nothing party, 527.
Knox, Henry, his family, 31 ; sees the
massacre, 31 ; portrait, 95.
Kosciusko, 99.
LAFAYETTE in Boston, 173, 185, 231,
575, 602 ; autograph, 173.
Lamb's Dam, 114, 573.
Lamb Tavern, 93.
Lamps in streets, 152.
Land Commissioners, 258.
Lane, Oliver W., 489.
Lathrop, Rev. John, 125, 471.
Lauzun, autograph, 166.
Law books, sale of, during Revolution,
138.
Lawrence. Abbott, 345 ; his house,
232. Captain James, 344.
Leach, John, vii, 552; autograph, 552.
Learned, Colonel Ebenezer, auto-
graph, 117. Thomas, 104.
Leather manufacture, 587.
Lech mere, Richard, 106 ; his house,
"3-
Lechmere's Point, 106.
Lecture system, 658.
Lee, General Charles, autograph, 105.
Rev. Jesse, 434, 436. Joseph, au-
tograph, 153 ; his house, 113.
Lee papers, 29.
Legislature, Boston in the, 298; grants
to Boston institutions, 298 ; coope-
rates with Boston in improvements,
298 ; gifts to the aty, 298.
Leonard, Daniel, 132 ; autograph, 133.
L'Etombe, 166.
Lewis, Rev. S. C., 447.
Lexington, march to, 67, 101 ; Gage's
account of, 73; relics of, 74; plan
of, 102 ; authorities, 102.
Liberator, newspaper, 372, 632.
Liberty, Hancock's sloop, 23.
Liberty party, 389.
Liberty song, 131.
Liberty tree, 12, 16, 19, 28, 45, 159;
view of, 159.
Libraries in Brighton, 606 ; in Charles-
town, 569.
License law, 248, 254, 286.
Lighthouse burned, 90, 182.
Life in Boston in the Revolutionary
period, 149.
Lillie, Theophilus, 30.
Lincoln, Frederick W. Jr., mayor,
262 ; again elected, 268 ; autograph,
291. General B., autograph, 194.
Lincoln statue, 400.
Linsley, Rev. J. H., 410.
Linzee, Captain John, 83, 106. ,
Literature of the last hundred years,
617, 634.
Little, Captain George, 187, 335. Cap-
tain Luther, 187.
Little Sisters of the poor, 541.
Lloyd, Henry, autograph, 152. James,
209.
LODGE, HENRY CABOT, " The last
forty years of Town Government,"
189.
LONG, JOHN D., " Boston and the
Commonwealth," 293.
Long Lane meeting-house, 471.
Longfellow, Stephen, autograph, 213.
Henry W., 672; his poetry, 672 ;
draft of his " Excelsior," 673 ; his
house, 112.
Loring, Ellis Gray, 377. Joshua, 179.
Louis Phiilippe in Boston, 624.
Lovejoy, E. P., killed, 384.
Lovell, James, autograph, 160. John,
autograph, 160. General Solomon,
185 ; autograph, 185.
Lowell, Colonel Charles R., 321.
James Russell, his poetry, 673 ; his
autograph, 674 ; his house, 113, 114.
John, Jr., 574.
Lowell estate in Roxbury, 576.
Lowell Institute, 658.
688
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Loyalists, 175; abandon Boston, 191 ;
writers, 145 ; corps of, formed, 77.
Lyman, Joseph, autograph, 213. The-
odore, mayor, 237 ; portrait, 237 ;
autograph, 290; and the Garrison
mob, 382.
Lynde, Benjamin, presided at the mas-
sacre trials, 38 ; autograph, 38.
Lynde's Point, 567.
MACCARTY FARM, 576.
Maffitt, Rev. J. N., 438.
Magazines, 636.
Magee, Captairr-James, 575.
Magnitique, ship wrecked in Boston
harbor, 88.
Malcom, Daniel, 23 ; autograph, 152.
Maiden bridge, 555.
Manly, John, commissioned, 90; au-
tograph, 90; captures ordnance,
106.
Mann, Horace, 652.
Manwaring, Edward, 38.
Maps of Boston, i-xii.
Marshfield, troops at, 65.
Mason, Rev. Charles, 464. David, 62.
Jonathan, autograph, 29, 153.
Masquerade, 161.
Massachusetts Centinel, 617, 626; laws
of Congress in, 624.
Massachusetts Gazette, 130.
Massachusetts Magazine, 635, 637.
Massachusetts Mercury, 625.
Massachusetts Quarterly Review, 663.
Massachusetts Spy, 134, 617 ; fac-
simile, 135 ; removed to Worcester,
>37-
Massachusetts Baptist Education So-
ciety, 430.
Massachusetts Fusileers, 303.
Massachusetts Historical Society, 635.
Massachusetts State papers, 145.
Massachusetts, ship, 331.
Massachusettensis, essays, 133.
Mather, Rev. Snmuel, 126 ; autograph,
127.
Matignon, Rev. F. A., 516; autograph,
519-
Maverick, Samuel, 31.
May, Snmuel J., 379.
Mayhew, Father, 529. Jonathan, 119;
and the Stamp Act, 20, 467, 484.
McAlpine, Daniel, 160.
McCleary, Samuel F., father and son,
225.
McLean Asylum for the insane, 567.
Means, Rev. James H., 594.
Meeting-house hill in Roxbury, 577;
in Dorchester, 594.
Mein. John, 30, 151 ; autograph, 131.
Mein & Fleming, 130.
Merchant's autographs, Revolutionary
period, 152.
Merrimac, frigate, 362.
Methodist churches, 423; in Brighton,
605 ; in Charlestown, 563 ; in Rox-
bury, 582 ; School of Theology, 441 ;
Social Union, 442.
Mexican war, 311, 565, 664.
Middlesex canal, 556 ; horse railroad,
556.
Mifflin, Thomas, v ; quartermaster-
general, no.
Miles, Rev. James B., 412 ; autograph,
4'3-
Militia, 303, 328.
Mill-dam, 575 ; plan of, in 1814, x, xi.
Miller's Hill, 105.
MINER, A. A., 500 ; " Century of Uni-
versalism," 483.
Minot, George R., autograph, 194.
Missions by the Baptists, 428.
Missionary Herald, 646.
Mitchell, Rev. Edward, 490 ; auto-
graph, 490.
Mohawks of the tea-party, 49.
Montgomery, J. B., autograph, 353.
Monthly Anthology, 479, 637.
Montresor, ii, iii.
Moore house in Cambridge, no.
Moorhead, Rev. John, 129.
Morgan, Daniel and his riflemen, 104.
John T., 332
Morris, Commodore Charles, 341 ; au-
tograph, 352.
Morse, Rev. Jedediah, 406, 471, 474,
560 ; autograph, 407, 560 ; his writ-
ings, 561 ; controversy with Hannah
Adams, 560, 641. S. F. B., birth-
place, 255 ; autograph, 553. Sidney
E., 632.
Motley, J. L., 671 ; autograph, 671.
William W., 438.
Mount Hope Cemetery, 586.
Mount Pleasant, 576.
Muddy Pond, 572.
Mugford, Captain, 182.
Murray, Rev. John, 484, 489 ; por-
trait, 486 ; autograph, 486.
Murray's barracks, 31.
Mystic River, xii ; water works, 569.
NANTASKET ROADS, British fleet
driven from, 182.
National Lancers, 300.
Naval hospital, 351 ; school, 348; ser-
vice during the Revolution, 118, 186.
Navigation acts, 9.
Navy agent, 336.
Navy-yard established, 335, 556 ; the
original purchase, 337; plan in 1823,
342 : ship-houses built, 344 ; plan
in 1827, 350; plan in 1874, 366.
Neale, Rev. R. H., 426.
Neck, defences on the, 80 ; views of, 80.
Neponset River, 595.
New England club of loyalists, 175.
New England, maps of, i.
New England Chronicle, 138.
New England Galaxy, 628, 631.
New England Guards, 307, 342, 345,
346.
Neiv England Magazine, 651.
New England Methodist Historical
Society, 442.
New Jerusalem Church, 509.
New York Herald, 630.
Newman, Robert, 101.
News-Letter, 130.
Newspapers, 617; taxed, 621.
Nichols, E. T., autograph, 353.
Nicholson, John B., autograph, 352.
Commodore Samuel, 333, 334, 338 ;
autograph, 352.
Nixon, John, autograph, 105.
Nix's Mate, i.
Non-importation agreement, 29, 41,
150
Nooks Hill, 97.
Norcross, Otis, 272 ; mayor, 273 ; au-
tograph, 291.
Norfolk County "Journal, 584.
Norfolk Gazette, 583.
Norfolk Guards, 584.
Norfolk House, 576.
Norman, J., iv, vii, ix.
North, Lord, 26 ; autograph, 26.
North American Review, 638, 643,
663.
North Chelsea, 616.
Norton, Professor Andrews, -177.
Charles E., his writings, 679.
Novanglus Essays, 133.
Novel, first American, 636.
OCEAN SPRAY, 616.
Odd Fellows, 585.
Ogden, Rev. John C., 449.
Old and New, 680.
Old Ironsides, 337.
Old North, 156.
Old South, 156, 158.
Old State House made a City Hall,
235-
Oliver, Andrew, as a writer, 146 ; por-
trait, 43 ; autograph, 43 ; hung in
effigy, 12 ; his oath of resignation,
15. Andrew, Jr., 146. Peter, au-
tograph, 43. Thomas, his house,
1 13, 114 ; family, 43.
Otheman, Anthony, 440.
Otis, Harrison Gray, 194, 204, 303 ; as
a boy, 70 ; mayor, 234 ; portrait,
235; autograph, 213, 235, 290. Mrs.
Harrison Gray, 315. James, argues
against writs of assistance, 4 : por-
trait 6 ; autograph, 6 ; his State-
ment, 10 ; proposes a congress, 12,
15; fac-simile of letter, 20 ; active,
25 ; as a writer, 140.
Overseers of the poor, 271.
Oxnard, Thomas, 340, 341.
PADDOCK, ADINO, 62 ; autograph, 62.
Bishop, 464.
Page, Lieutenant, iii.
Paige, Rev. Lucius R., 503 ; autograph,
5°3-
Paine, Rev. Joshua, Jr., 560. Robert
Treat, 144, v ; in massacre trials, 36 ;
autograph, 144- Thomas, 625.
Palladium, 625.
Panics of invasion, 165.
Paper mill, 595.
Papists, warrant against, 169.
PALFREY, GENERAL F. W., " Boston
Soldiery in War and Peace," 303 ;
INDEX.
689
in service, 326. John G., 476, 646 ;
Abolitionist, 377, 395.
Park Street, view of, 232.
Parker, Foxhall A., autograph, 352,
353- John, autograph, 74. Rev.
Samuel, 128, 447, 450, 454. Rev.
Theodore, as theologian, 478 ; as
minister, 581 ; an Abolitionist, 392,
393 ; portrait, 394 ; autograph, 394 ;
references for life, 394 ; as lecturer,
659.
Parkman, Francis, his histories, 668.
Parks proposed, 284 ; in Roxbury, 586.
Parrott, E. G., autograph, 353.
Parsons, T. W., 676.
Parting stone, 585.
Patriots among the country gentry,
191; imprisoned, 154.
Payne, Edward, autograph, 29, 152.
Payson, Rev. Phillips, 551, 611, 612,
615; autograph, 551. Samuel, 551,
557; autograph, 558.
Paxton, Charles, autograph, 4.
PEABODY, A. P., " Unitarians in Bos-
ton," 467. Rev. Ephraim, 479.
Peacock Tavern, 117.
Peace of 1815, 213.
Peace extra of 1783, 174.
Peck, John, 186.
Pelham, Henry, his map of Boston, ii ;
autograph, iii.
Pemberton, Rev. Ebenezer, 125. Sam-
uel, autograph, 39.
Penobscot expedition, 185.
Pennsylvania, constitution of, 139.
Pepperell, Sir William, the younger,
179.
Percy, Earl, arrives, 56 ; letters, 57,
101 ; portrait, 58 ; autograph, 58 ; his
headquarters, 155 ; at Lexington,
70; his retreat, 75.
Peter Parley, 649.
Phelps, Rev. A. A., 411.
Phillips, John, mayor, 90, 224 ; portrait,
223 ; autograph, 290. Wendell, 376,
384. Willard, 638 ; autograph, 639.
William, 38; autograph, 29, 153.
Phips family, in.
Phips's farm, 106.
Pierce, Henry L., mayor, 281 ; again
elected, 288 ; autograph, 291.
Pierpont, John, 377, 650; autograph,
650.
Pierpont's village, 571.
Pigot, General, 84 ; autograph, 84 ; his
quarters, 155.
Pillmore, Rev. Joseph, 435.
Pillory, 173.
Pilot, 633.
Pine-tree flag, 188.
Pitcairn, Major, 102, 103 ; killed, 87.
Pitt and the Stamp Act, 17.
Ploughed hill, 104.
Polar Star, 627.
Police, city liable for their acts, 300 ;
department of, 245, 246, 252, 259,
266 ; reorganized, 289.
Pond Plain, 571.
Poole, Charles, 551.
VOL. III. — 87.
Port-captain, 348, 353.
PORTER, EDWARD G., "The begin-
ning of the Revolution," i. Rev.
Eliphalet, 580.
Post Boy, 130.
Poterie, Abbe de la, 515.
Potter, Rev. Alonzo, 456.
Powars, E. E., 617.
Powars & Willis, 138.
Powder tower, 105.
Power of Sympathy, 636.
PREBI.E, ADMIRAL GEORGE H., "The
Navy and the Charlestown Navy
Yard," 331. Jedediah, 64 ; auto-
graph, 64.
Prentice, Rev. Thomas, 559, 562 ;
autograph, 562.
Prescott, William (Judge), autograph,
213. Colonel William sent to Bun-
ker Hill, 82; autograph, 82, 115.
William H., 666 ; autograph, 666 ;
view of his library, 667.
Press of the last hundred years, 617;
of the Revolution, 130.
Preston, Captain Thomas, 31 ; his trial,
36, 38.
Price Lectures, 452.
Priest, John T., 551.
Prince, Frederick O., mayor, 287 ;
again elected, 290 ; autograph, 291.
Princeton, U. S. Steamer, 362.
Prisoners taken by the British, 187.
Privateers in the Revolution, 90, 92,
118, 182 ; in the war of 1812, 340.
Prohibitory liquor law, 254.
Prospect Hill Camp, 105.
Protector, ship, 187.
Provincial Congress, 63, 65, 107.
Public Garden act, 263.
Public Institutions, directors of, 262.
Pulling, John, 101.
Pulling Point, 612, 616.
Punch-bowl village, 571.
Pulpit of the Revolution, 119.
Purkett, Captain Henry, 303.
Puseyism, 458.
Putnam, Dr. Aaron, 336 ; autograph,
556. Rev. George, 479, 581. Israel,
autograph, 80 ; at Prospect Hill,
105 ; in command in Boston, 182.
QUINCV, EDMUND, 376. Josiah, Jr.
(patriot), law reports, 5 ; defends
Preston, 36 ; his portrait, 37 ; auto-
graph, 37 ; speech on tea, 49 ;
" Hyperion," 142 ; on Port bill,
142. Josiah (President), 142, 307;
and embargo, 209 ; opposed city
charter, 221; mayor, 226; portrait,
227; statues, 227, 291; autograph,
290. Josiah (the younger), mayor,
251 ; autograph, 290. Samuel, 36,
'79, '9'-
Quincy market, view of, 228.
RAILROAD, to the Hudson, 234.
Railroad jubilee, 257.
Railroads opposed, 596.
Rand, Dr. Isaac, autograph, 555.
Randall, Rev. G. M., 461.
Rangers, 307.
Ransom, George M., autograph, 353.
Rawdon, Lord, 87.
Read, John, 572, 575.
Reed, B. T., 465. David, 633. REV.
JAMES, 510 ; " New Jerusalem
Church," 509. Colonel Joseph,
autograph, 1 13. Sampson, 510.
Registration of voters, 286.
Regulation acts, 53 , 55.
Relly, Rev. James, 484.
Reporting, early, 622.
Republican party (early), 623.
Republican volunteers, 303.
Revenue laws, 8, 41.
Revere, Paul, 310, 332, 337; and his
lanterns, 101 ; his transparencies,
135 ; in the Penobscot Expedition,
186 ; his ride, 68 ; portrait, 69 ;
autograph, 69 ; engraves paper mo-
ney, 69 ; his plan of King Street,
39 ; his illuminations of the massa-
cre, 40 ; portrait of Hancock, 45,
46 ; mission to New York, 50 ; his
" Able Doctor," 55. Major Paul
J. 318; portrait, 319.
Revere, town of, 611, 616.
Revolution, beginning of, i.
Rhode Island Expedition, 185.
Rice, Alexander H., mayor, 261 ; auto-
graph, 291.
Rich, Isaac, 439.
Richards, Rev. George, 488.
Richardson, Ebenezer, 30.
Ripley, Rev. George, 477, 663.
Robin, Abbe", in Boston, 168.
Robinson, Rev. J. P., 461.
Rochambeau, autograph, 166.
Rocking stone, 586.
Rockingham ministry, 16,
Rodgers, Admiral John, autograph,
353-
Rogers, Jeremiah Dummer, 180, 562.
Rev. William M., 411 ; autograph,
411.
Roman Catholics, 515; in Brighton,
605 ; in Roxbury, 582.
Romans, B., v.
Romney, man-of-war, 23.
Roslindale, 572.
Rousselet, Rev. Louis, 515.
Rowe, J., autograph, 152.
Rowson, Mrs. Susannah, 643.
Roxbury, in the last hundred years,
571 ; two hundred and fiftieth anni-
versary, 575 ; a city, 577 ; mayors of,
578; annexed, 275, 579; churches,
580; schools, 582 ; noted citizens,
588 ; maps of, viii, x, xi ; old par-
sonage in, 115, 116; American lines
in, 114 ; forts, 115, 116.
Roxbury artillery, 584.
Roxbury Athenaeum, 583.
Roxbury city guard, 584.
Roxbury City Gazette, 584.
Roxbury horse guards 584.
Royal), Isaac, in ; his mansion, 105.
Ruddock, John, 437.
690
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Ruggles, George, his house, 1 13. Tira-
othy, 77 ; autograph, 77.
Ruggles estate in Roxbury, 576.
Russell, Major Ben.. 617; autograph,
619 ; portrait, 619 ; his Gazette,
625. Thomas, 113; autograph, 153,
564. Walter, autograph, 551.
SACK, JOHN, 614.
Salem, Leslie's expedition to, 65.
Salt pans, 587.
Salter, Richard, autograph, 152.
Saltonstall, Dudley, 186.
Sandeman, Robert, 129.
Sanitary measures, 226.
Sans Souci Club, 620.
Sargent, Epes, 630; autograph, 630.
J. O. 65,.
Saturday, beginning of Sunday, 169.
Saturday Evening Gazette, 631.
Savage, James, 646.
Scammell, Alexander, autograph, 105.
Schools, 231, 249, 254 ; in Brighton,
605; books used in, 642, 644; in
Charlestown, 557 ; in Dorchester,
591.
Scott, John, autograph, 152.
SCODDER, HORACE E., *' Life in
Boston," 149.
Sea-fencibles, 311.
Seabury, Bishop, 449.
Seamen's Bethel, 438.
Seaver, Benjamin, mayor, 258; auto-
graph, 290.
Seaverns, Joel, farm, 586.
Second Massachusetts Regiment in the
Civil War, 325.
Sedgwick, Catharine M., 647; auto-
graph, 648.
Select "Journal of Foreign Periodical
Literature, 654.
Selectmen, origin of, 218.
Selfridge trial, 207.
Sewall, Jonathan, 36, 132, 133 ; as
writer, 146; his house, 113. Rev.
Joseph, 125. Samuel, autograph,
554. Samuel E., 372, 377.
Sewall' s farm, 114.
Shaw, I^muel, drafts city charter, 222.
Colonel Robert G-, 321 : portrait,
321. Samuel, 38, 331 ; autograph,
38-
Sharp, Rev. Daniel, 425.
Shays's Rebellion, 193, 194, 572, 622.
Shedd, A. B., 551.
Sherburne, Joseph, autograph, 153. •
Ship-yards, 187.
Shirley Hall, 575.
Shubrick, William B., 349 ; autograph,
352-
Shurtleff, Nathaniel B., 261, 273;
mayor, 276; autograph, 291.
Shurtleff farm, 615.
Silloway, Rev. T. W., 491.
Silver, Rev. Abiel, 509.
Simms, the fugitive, 256, 397.
Sisters of Charity, 520 ; of the Good
Shepherd, 540 ; of Notre Dame,
529, 532.
Skinner, Rev. Otis A., 504 ; autograph,
504.
Skillman, Rev. Isaac, 127, 423.
Slavery in Massachusetts, 370.
Sleeper, Jacob, 439.
Small-pox, 163, 612.
Smith, Isaac, 72 ; autograph, 29.
Jerome V. C., mayor, 259 ; auto-
graph, 291. Ralph, 587.
Snider, Christopher, 30.
Snow, Jeremiah, 549.
Snowden, Rev. Samuel, 440.
Society of the Holy Redeemer, 544.
Soldier's monument on the Common,
324-
Solemn league and covenant, 55.
Somerville incorporated, 568.
Song of Liberty, 144.
Sons of Liberty, n, 12, 13, 19, 26, 29,
150.
Southack, Cyprian, viii.
South bay, xii ; lands, 253.
South Boston, 597 ; plan of, xi ; flats,
273. See Dorchester Neck.
Southgate, Rev. H., 460.
Sparks, Jared, 647; autograph, 647;
his writings, 647 ; his library, 647.
Sparhawk, Edward, 603.
Spears used during the siege, 1 16.
Spicer, William F., autograph, 353.
Spinnets, 154.
Spooner, John, autograph, 153. J. J.,
584.
Sprague, Charles, 651 ; autograph, 649.
Captain Richard, 559.
Spry, Rev. Christopher, 438.
Stamp Act, 9; cut of stamp, 12 ; sche-
dule of prices, 12 ; congress, 12, 15 ;
riot, 14; in parliament, 17; repealed,
19 ; rejoicings in Boston, 19.
Stark, John, at Bunker Hill, 88; auto-
graph, 89.
State-aid to soldiers, 315.
State and City, 293 ; large tax paid by
Boston to the State, 296.
State prison, 567 ; mutiny at, 351.
State-reform School at Westboro", 241.
Stearns, George L. , 398.
Steedman, Charles, autograph, 353.
Steuben, Baron, 185 ; autograph, 185.
Stevenson, General Thomas G., 317;
portrait, 317.
Stillman, Rev. Samuel, 127, 423 ; por-
trait, 422.
Stone, Rev. John S., 457.
Storer, Ebenezer, autograph, 29, 153.
Story, Joseph, his verse, 643. W. W.,
676.
Stow, Rev. Baron, 425.
Stowe, H. B., her Uncle Tom's Cabin,
396 ; her writings, 677 ; autograph,
678
Streeter, Rev. S., 490 ; autograph, 490.
Street commissioners, 278.
Streets, widening of, cost, 273-
Stringham, Commodore S. H., auto-
graph, 352.
Strong, Caleb, autograph, 205.
Suburban News, 584.
Sudbury River water, 280.
Suffolk County in the Civil War, 313.
Suffolk resolves, 59.
Suffolk Sireet district, 274.
Sugar duties, 10.
Sullivan, Captain George, 345. James,
626; autograph, 208. General John,
autograph, 104. William, 380.
Sumner, Charles, 390; portrait, 391;
references for his life, 392 ; as-
saulted, 398. Increase, autograph,
204.
Sunday-schools, 405.
Sutherland, George, 439.
Swan, Samuel, autograph, 551.
Swedenborgians, 509.
Swedenborg's belief, 511.
Swett, Captain Samuel, 346.
Syckes, John, 614.
Symines, Major Andrew, 183.
TALLEYRAND in Boston, 624.
TARBOX, I. N., "The Congregational
Churches," 401.
Tea sent to Boston, 44 ; arrives, 45, 46 ;
meetings held, 47 ; minutes of the
meetings, 49 ; thrown into the har-
bor, 49 ; names of the actors, 50, 51 ;
sources of information, 51.
Ten-hills farm, 104.
Ternay, Chevalier de, autograph, 166.
Thacher, Oxenbridge, 4, 10, 144. Pe-
ter, autograph, 103.
Thayer, Ephraim, 332. Rev. John,
515; autograph, 515. Rev. T. B.,
504 ; autograph, 504.
Theatricals during the siege, 161.
Thomas, General, 78 ; made general,
65 ; autograph, 65 ; builds fort at
Roxbury, 116. Isaiah, 134, 642 ; his
History of Printing, 642. Joshua,
autograph, 213.
Thompson, - Rev. Amos G., 438.
George, 381. Rev. J. S , 491 ; au-
tograph, 491. Samuel, viii, ix.
Thoreau, H. D., 658.
Thursday lecture, 159, 164, 402, 469.
Town-meetings, 174.
Towns, origin of, 217 ; government of,
218; can be incorporated as cities
by the legislature, 220.
Townshend, Charles, 8, 21, 26.
Ticknor, George, 60i, 667 ; statuette
of, 661 ; autograph, 661 ; his Spanish
Literature, 661 : view of his library,
662 ; his house, 232.
Ticonderoga, cannon from, 106.
Tigers, New England guards, 300.
Tithing men, 154.
Tractarian movement, 458.
Tracy, Nathaniel, 113; entertains
French officers, 166.
Transcendentalism, 477, 654, 658.
Tremont Street in 1800, 451 ; opened,
576.
Tremont Temple, 431.
Trinity Church, 456; ruins of, 457.
Troops sent to Boston, 23, 25, 26, 56,
64.
INDEX.
691
Trumball, Timothy, 531, 557; auto-
graph, 557.
Trumbull, John, v ; his plan of Bos-
ton and vicinity, 80.
Tucker, Captain Samuel, 182, 187.
Tuckerman, Rev. Joseph, 477, 615.
Tudor, William, 144, 453, 637, 638;
autograph, 144, 184, 185.
Tufts, Charles, founder of Tufts Col-
lege. 555- Nathan, autograph, 555.
Samuel, 557.
Tufts College, 500 ; House, 105.
Tukey, Francis, 252 ; discharged, 258.
Turner, Rev. Edward, 491 ; autograph,
491. Captain William, 303.
Twentieth Massachusetts regiment,
318, 326.
Tyrannicide, brig, 187.
UNION CLUB, 232.
Unitarian Review, 479.
Unitarians, 450, 467, 646; table of
churches, 480; in Brighton, 605;
controversy, 561 ; in Dorchester,
594; in Roxbury, 581.
United States Intelligencer, 520.
Universalists, 483 ; their first meeting-
house, 489 ; publications, 507 ; in
Brighton, 605 ; in Charlestown,
562; in Roxbury, 581.
Universalist Magazine, 497.
Urquart, James, autograph, iii.
Ursuline Convent established, 519;
destroyed by a mob, 238, 521, 564;
view of, 522 ; references upon, 524 ;
indemnification, 532.
VASSALL, HENRY, iii. Colonel John,
in.
Vassall house in Cambridge, in.
Vaubiard, Admiral, in Boston, 188.
Vermont, line-of -battle ship, 344, 354.
Vinton, Rev. A. H. 460.
Viomenil arrives, 165.
Virginia, line-of-battle ship, 354.
WADSWORTH, ALEXANDER, x. Gen-
eral Peleg, 186; autograph, 186.
Wadsworth house, 106 ; view of, 107.
Waldo, Daniel, autograph, 213. Jo-
seph, autograph, 29.
Walker, Rev. James, D. D., 562 ; auto-
graph, 562. Timothy, autograph,
567. Dr. William J. autograph, 552.
Walter, Rev. William, 129.
War of 1812, 211, 303, 626.
War of Secession, 312 ; men furnished
by Boston, 315.
Ward, Artemas, made general, 64 ;
autograph, 64 ; portrait, 109, 186 ;
commands in Roxbury, 1 16 Judge
Artemas, 562. Colonel Joseph,
86.
Warden & Russell, 617.
Ware, Henry, Sr., 474. Rev. Henry,
Jr., 476.
Warner, Jonathan, 573.
Warren, Dr. John, autograph, 112;
surgeon of Cambridge Hospital,
112. Joseph, as a writer, 142 ; mas-
sacre oration, 65, 142 ; fac-simile of
it, 143 ; his sword, 143 ; autograph,
39, 60 ; his birthplace, 59 ; lived on
Hanover Street, 59; portrait, 60;
other likenesses, 61 ; family, 61 ;
burial, 61 ; his wife's portrait, 63 ;
Chairman of Committee of Safety,
77 ; killed, 88 ; statue of, 566. Mercy,
146; her writings, 641.
Warren Association, 426.
Warren bridge, 555.
Warren Phalanx, 307, 552.
Warren, sloop-of-war, 354.
Warren Tavern, 558.
Washington takes command, 90; at
Dorchester Heights (by Stuart), 98 ;
his writings, 647 ; proclamation of,
181 ; headquarters in Cambridge,
106; visits Boston (1789), 197, 349,
S59> 573 : Hancock's conduct tow-
ards, 197, 199 ; reception arch, 200 ;
portraits (Athenaeum head), 198;
other likenesses, 199 ; monuments
to, 199.
Washington Elm, 109, no.
Washington, Fort, 106.
Washington Light Infantry, 303.
Washington Medal, 100.
Washington Street, 199.
Washington Village, 595, 598.
Watchman and Reflector, 633.
Water-power Company, 261.
Water-supply considered, 238, 249, 250,
251 ; introduced, 252, 256.
Waterhouse, Samuel, 132, 151.
Wayland, Rev. Francis, 426.
Webster, Daniel, 628 : autograph, 670 ;
his seventh of March speech, 396;
refused Faneuil Hall to speak in,
257 ; his statue, 232. Grant, 135.
Wednesday Evening Club, 168.
Weekly Advertiser, 130.
Weekly newspapers, 631.
Weeks, Rev. J. W., 447-
Weld, Stephen M., 583.
Wells, Charles, mayor, 236 ; autograph,
290. Rev. E. M. P., 457, 461.
Welsh Fusiliers, 56, 80.
Wesleyan Association, 441.
West Church, 158.
West Roxbury, 117; set off, 577, 578;
annexed, 284, 580.
Western Railroad opened, 248.
Wheatley, Phillis, 147 ; autograph,
147.
Whipping-post, 172.
Whipple, E. P., 681 ; autograph, 681.
White farm, 576.
Whittemore, Rev. Benjamin, 503 ; au-
tograph, 503. Rev. Thomas, 497 ;
autograph, 497.
Whittier, J. G., 650 ; his poetry, 675.
Wightman, Joseph M., mayor, 265;
autograph, 291.
Wilde, Samuel S., autograph, 213.
Wilder, Marshall P., 596.
Willard, Solomon, autograph, 566.
Willard's clocks, 587.
Williams, John Foster, 186, 187, 188.
Bishop J. J., 530, 533, 539; made
archbishop, 543. Daniel, 551. Jona-
than, autograph, 153. Joseph, 572.
Richard, iv. Dr. Thomas, 576.
Williams farm in Chelsea, 615.
Willis, Nathaniel, 632.
Willis's creek, 105.
Winchester Home for Aged Women,
57°.
Winnisimmet Ferry, 615.
Winship mansion in Brighton, 602,
608.
Winship's nurseries, 607.
Winslow, Rev. Hubbard, 412. Isaac,
autograph, 153. John, autograph,
152.
Winslow Blues, 303.
Winter Hill, 104, 105.
Winthrop, John, statue of, 291 ; his
History of New England, 646.
Robert C., chairman of the Over-
seers of the Poor, 272. Thomas L.,
224.
Winthrop, town of, 6n, 616.
Wise, Rev. John, 122.
Wisner, Rev. B. B., 409; autograph,
409.
Withington, Matthew, viii, ix.
Woman's Foreign Missionary Society,
442.
Wood, David, 552. David, Jr., 563.
Josiah, autograph, 552.
Worcester, Rev. Noah, 607. Rev.
Thomas, 509.
Writs of assistance, 2, 4, 21, 140.
Wyman, Thomas B., autograph, 566.
YOUNG, Rev. ALEXANDER, 476.
Young & Etheridge, 625.
Z ion's Herald, 441, 633.
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